Tech Data Introduces IoT and Analytics Solution Factory

Earlier this year, Tech Data launched its Cloud Solutions Factory. The intent: to simplify digital transformation with a portfolio of end-to-end, validated and pre-integrated solutions. This week, the distributor addressed next-generation technologies, namely analytics and IoT, with the new Analytics and IoT Solutions Factory.

Leaving no technology behind, Tech Data’s Analytics and IoT Solutions Factory, a global offer for partners, expands on the click-to-run solutions found in its Cloud Solutions Factory to create vetted analytics and IoT solutions that focus on specific use cases in key vertical markets.

Tech Data’s Andrea Miner

“Our solutions development team looks at very specific solutions created for one particular business problem and applies it across multiple verticals for different use cases,” Andrea Miner, director of consulting services for analytics and IoT at Tech Data, shared with Channel Futures. “Then it becomes more scalable where we’re not reinventing the wheel every time we enter into an analytics and IoT engagement.”

Analytics and IoT solutions are real and present channel partners an opportunity to broaden their horizons. Here are a few examples of outcomes within the Analytics and IoT Solution Factory:

The distributor’s Solutions Factory methodology is used to vet solutions and to make sure that they’re repeatable for partners. The methodology could be used in different next-generation technologies, in addition to cloud, analytics and IoT.

“What we’ve learned over the years of doing analytics and IoT and enabling channel partners, is that it’s difficult to scale IoT and analytics, especially for a partner. So, when they’re engaging with their customer and creating a solution based on that one customer’s business problem, it’s highly customized. And it’s hard to make money on IoT and analytics if you’re not able to scale these solutions that you’re creating,” said Miner.

Tech Data’s four vertical areas of focus are industrial, health care, smart cities and retail. Partners will see the distributor expand its solutions and use cases in these areas.

The Solutions Factory methodology complements Tech Data’s Practice Builder program, a methodology Tech Data uses to assess and create a strategy around, in this case, analytics and IoT for the partner. The program looks at things such as, what does it look like for a partner to build an analytics and IoT offering? What investments would the partner need to make? How could Tech Data partner in marketing with the partner? And so on.

Tech Data’s Practice Builder program has been around for a few years.

Industry analyst firm IDC projects that by 2021, more than 65% of partners will focus efforts by vertical or functional use case. Repeatable solutions enable faster delivery to help optimize use case deployment, resulting in greater profits for stakeholders.

Tech Data also offers Dell IoT Connected Bundles. Expect to hear more from Tech Data about additional multivendor solutions  in the next couple of months.

The distributor is also on board with Microsoft, which is taking Tech Data’s Practice Builder methodology, and will turn it into a day-and-a-half workshop that takes one solution and provides a go-to-market strategy for partners.

“We’re hoping that smaller partners who have already made investments in cloud and security, and maybe don’t have the bandwidth to add IoT and analytics, they can leverage the solutions we put in the Solutions Factory to enable them to pick one and sell it. That gives them the opportunity to have that IoT and analytics conversation with their customer,” said Miner.