TD Synnex VP Discusses Unifying Partner Communities Post Merger
She also talks of the macroeconomic challenges partners face and what TD Synnex is doing to address those.
November 17, 2022
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Channel Futures: Why is Varnex growing faster than TechSelect?
TD Synnex’s Kaye McMillan: Some of that is a little artificially-driven. A natural business shift occurred, and it may be inflating some of that growth in the Varnex area. To be candid, there are more similarities between the communities than differences, but TechSelect was a little bit heavier in the advanced solutions area and there was some lull in that business overall. But they are both growing at a positive rate, and we’ve been continuing to focus on growing as we become one. There is also the reality that we’re still a merger in transition and we didn’t want to disrupt what has been built around TechSelect and Varnex. We’re not going to have that challenge going forward because we are getting through that merger. It’s going to be a different environment to work with starting next year.
CF: How are partners looking for ways to empower themselves? This is from a technology standpoint, from a services standpoint and even from a financial creativity standpoint.
KM: It’s very evident that the services piece is becoming more and more important, which is why we have had services featured in our agenda [at the conference]. There’s awareness in the community. In terms of empowerment, it’s making sure that partners have access to resources and essentially leverage us to expand and address the business outcomes that some of their customers are asking for that they may not have the resources to support in-house. In terms of financing, we’re seeing a demand for more flexible credit options. Also, how do we manage their financing when right now when there’s a supply chain backlog? Partners have been coming to us to help them navigate that situation.
CF: Thinking in bigger economic terms, what financing options do partners have when it comes down to the supply chain hurdles they face?
KM: Obviously, we have a wide array of options, such as TD Synnex Capital, for example. But it’s really sitting down and having a conversation at the partner level. Everyone’s situation is going to be a little different based on what’s on backlog. What’s the time frame they’re trying to work with regarding their end user? That’s why having the appropriate conversations with your sales teams can determine whether the credit options we offer match what partners are trying to accomplish. We’ve also extended credit beyond what we normally would in the past because of the situation. It’s really opportunity by opportunity, partner by partner.
CF: Are you offering more competitive rates than a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America?
KM: That’s one of our biggest strengths. We have more financing options than what you would be able to get in terms of business engagement at a regular bank. Our portfolio from a credit and financing perspective is a lot broader than you would see at other financial institutions.
CF: Why is services growing faster than the rest of TD Synnex?
KM: There’s obviously market driving that forward. I also think we’ve done a better job of creating awareness about what we have to offer. Also, one of the big advantages I’ve seen in the merger from the legacy Tech Data side is that the Synnex team has made offering professional services a lot easier. One of the things we’ve been hearing recently is, how do we make the industry and these engagements easier. With TD Synnex, we’ve made it simple, and we’ve created the awareness that we maybe didn’t have before. On the Tech Data side, things tended to be more vendor-focused as opposed to customer-focused. Now our team has been engaging more heavily with all our partners. That’s driving our numbers up. In the market in general, overall demand has been higher as well. And as we go through COVID times, people are navigating their IT infrastructure differently.
CF: TD Synnex has for some time underwritten deals for specific partners. What’s the long-term financial gain as a result?
KM: It’s that we’re placing a bet in terms of understanding where that partner is headed, and we want to make sure that these partners are loyal to us and that we want to be part of that opportunity. Again, we assess everything deeply at that partner level, understanding what their strategy is and what is their growth plan and what they are looking to achieve. We’ve been fortunate in driving some great growth and opportunity for TD Synnex even though we may be taking a bit of a bet upfront. But based on the numbers, we want to be the place where everybody goes to first. It’s paid off.
CF: Why would an organization partner with TD Synnex rather than link directly with a manufacturer?
KM: We provide scale on behalf of that partner. And that can be in a lot of different areas. Some of that might be financing credit because they’re not going to get that from the manufacturer. We do invest in certain partners based on their strategic plan. We want to be a part of that growth. Logistically, maybe they’re moving a lot of physical product and we can help with that. Regarding professional services, they may not have the bandwidth to take that on and the resources. We can offer that. I basically look at it as we’re here to help them scale their business so they can focus on business development. This means they can engage with their customers. We can handle everything else for them.
CF: How are B2B marketplaces impacting TD Synnex? How is the company reacting to the growth of B2B marketplaces?
KM: It varies a little bit by country to country and region to region. It’s something that we can’t take our eyes off of, but I personally don’t feel like it’s been horribly impactful maybe outside of our smallest customers. That’s mainly because of all the other value that we bring to the table. Scalability is something you can’t get from a website. You can’t get the credit, you can’t get the services, you can’t get the knowledge, the cloud expertise, the specialization. That’s the differentiator for what we offer.
CF: Where is the company headed in terms of the product line in the next year?
KM: We see more investment in a lot of our high-growth areas. Those areas are cybersecurity, and IoT. Cloud is an area of investment. We are seeing a little bit of resurgence in the data center area. People are reinvesting. We’re seeing larger-scale implementations and projects coming through that we didn’t see during the pandemic. Back to the services piece, we’re really expecting that area to grow. That’s going to be an investment area for the company overall. But how do we build more enablement tools for our partners? How do we make enablement easy through our enablement platforms that we have? How do we make it easier to do business? Because time is money. We can make it easier for our partners to work with us. They’re going to choose us because it frees up time for them to invest back in developing their business— not worrying about the business they have but the business that they want.
CF: What are your goals for the year ahead?
KM: Our mission is pretty simple: to grow the community and to grow their business but make sure we’re providing value. We don’t want to be 10,000 strong. That doesn’t make sense. However, we want to grow so that we have diversity of size, thought and business models. We want to do it in a thoughtful way so that partners are going to be engaged and committed.
CF: Where is the company headed in terms of the product line in the next year?
KM: We see more investment in a lot of our high-growth areas. Those areas are cybersecurity, and IoT. Cloud is an area of investment. We are seeing a little bit of resurgence in the data center area. People are reinvesting. We’re seeing larger-scale implementations and projects coming through that we didn’t see during the pandemic. Back to the services piece, we’re really expecting that area to grow. That’s going to be an investment area for the company overall. But how do we build more enablement tools for our partners? How do we make enablement easy through our enablement platforms that we have? How do we make it easier to do business? Because time is money. We can make it easier for our partners to work with us. They’re going to choose us because it frees up time for them to invest back in developing their business— not worrying about the business they have but the business that they want.
CF: What are your goals for the year ahead?
KM: Our mission is pretty simple: to grow the community and to grow their business but make sure we’re providing value. We don’t want to be 10,000 strong. That doesn’t make sense. However, we want to grow so that we have diversity of size, thought and business models. We want to do it in a thoughtful way so that partners are going to be engaged and committed.
TD Synnex became the world’s largest IT distributor and solutions aggregator when the merger between Tech Data and Synnex closed last year. One of the challenges the combined business faces is uniting each of the two previous companies’ partner communities – TechSelect (initially part of Tech Data) and Varnex (initially part of Synnex) – under a cohesive framework. Undoubtedly, there are several moving pieces.
Despite these challenges, TechSelect and Varnex partners are meeting more than just expectations. This year they garnered $6.3 billion-worth of buying power among 1,200-plus members. For now, though, the organizations will remain separate entities unified in purpose.
This Time Next Year
However, Kaye McMillan has other plans. McMillan is vice president, sales development group and communities, at TD Synnex. Her job is to effectively combine the two groups.
TD Synnex’s Kaye McMillan
“This time next year we are no longer TechSelect and Varnex. We are one community. The goal is to get to that,” McMillan said.
She discussed those goals in an interview with Channel Futures at TD Synnex’s CommunitySolv conference in Orlando this week. (CommunitySolv is the umbrella organization for TechSelect and Varnex). McMillan covered a wide array of topics, from her future goals for the communities to macroeconomic issues affecting partners.
Channel Futures: As part of the restructuring plans, oversight of the communities moved from marketing to sales. Now it’s your responsibility. Why was oversight the right move?
Kaye McMillan: What we really wanted to do is to bring the communities into the sales organization so there is more ownership and accountability. What does that mean? It means a couple of things in my mind. We want to measure them and their success internally against the growth of our partners in the community so that the sales team has some skin in the game as well. And not that they didn’t before. But we want our experience for our community members to be even better. We, too, want to prioritize our community members because they’re investing in us, and they are loyal to us. We should be responding to that.
See our slideshow above to learn what else McMillan had to say about bringing these groups together.
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