Distribution Roundup: Ingram, Pax8, Telarus M&A Highlight Q2
Whether you make money through resale or commissions, this is for you.
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An IBM veteran brought her talents to Tech Data‘s marketing department.
Catherine Solazzo now serves as senior vice president of marketing for the distributor. Previously she worked as IBM’s vice president of ecosystem marketing. She explained the differences between the jobs, as well as what drove her to make the change in a podcast interview with us.
Craig Galbraith wrote about Solazzo’s appointment.
A former candy executive joined the value-added distributor as its chief information officer.
Rachel Hayden will work as ScanSource’s senior executive vice president and CIO. She previously worked at Bethlehem, Israel-based candy company Just Born.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
Intelisys’ expanded Cisco relationship marks a milestone.
Although Cisco has partnered with Intelisys’ parent company, ScanSource, for 14 years, it now sells its WebEx offerings through Intelisys agents.
Intelisys also hired Michael Sterl, an entrepreneur and former Vonage channel leader, as its senior vice president of sales.
Read about the hiring and supplier news.
Ziply, which recently acquired certain Frontier Communications assets, is courting agents.
The Washington state-based company is working with 20-plus partners, including AppSmart and Intelisys, in its inaugural program. Ziply bought Frontier’s Northwest operations and assets in 2020.
Learn more about Ziply.
D&H Distributing is looking to rise to no. 3 in the distribution market.
D&H reported 34% growth in its VAR business. Its U.S. and Canadian reach has gone over $5 billion, according to the company.
Take a gander at Craig Galbraith’s story.
PlanetOne, the Arizona-based firm, brought its sales and supplier partners together for an in-person event.
PlanetOne hosted a golf event in Scottsdale, Arizona. Approximately 150 people attended. CEO Ted Schuman said they jumped at the chance to see each other.
“We ordinarily would run a contest and offer incentives to participate in an event like this,” he said. “We just picked a date and threw it out on two emails. And 72 hours later we had a field of 100 golfers from all over the country flying in.”
Check out Edward Gately’s visual recap of PlanetOne’s event.
The U.K. distributor bought a fellow British disti.
Nuvias Group bought Cloud Distribution, which brings a focus on emerging technologies. For now the two companies will operate with their respective brands.
Read about the purchase and Christine Horton’s follow-up with Nuvias’ CEO.
Perhaps no partner caught the eyes of the channel last quarter more than Upstack.
The New York-based agency and purchasing platform announced a $50 million private equity investment. It went on to announce multiple acquisitions of fellow telco agents, including Cloudnexion, PacTech Partners and M2 Enterprise Group.
Read the story we wrote about Upstack’s founding and funding.
Another quarter, another Telarus acquisition.
The Utah-based company purchased Comtel Communications, a Virginia-based firm that works with about 100 subagents and 350 suppliers.
Telarus is getting a loyal partner base, while Comtel’s owners have found what they describe as a safe environment to guard the well-being of their subagents.
Read about the Comtel acquisition.
On the personnel front, Telarus welcomed a big name to its leadership team.
Dan Foster, formerly of Ericsson, Fusion Connect and MegaPath, joined the services distributor as chief revenue officer. He replaced Meghan Hambacher Wilkinson, who has since moved to Upstack.
Read about the appointment.
This one generated no shortage of controversy.
It started with a source expressing their concern over the racial implications of the term “master agent.” Then other people in the channel weighed in on how they feel we need a new term that better represents what these companies provide.
Of course, plenty of people did not agree and they made their sentiments heard in the comment section.
“The term Master Agent does not bother me one single bit. So tired of the WOKE. What a joke,” one person rhymed.
Then Eclipse Telecom’s Dave Dyson penned a blistering article urging partners to adopt terminology. He will be calling master agents “technology services distributors” and subagents “partners.”
“The one thing we all have in common is that we serve our families, our customers, our teams and our communities, but we are never subservient. In many ways, we the partners and the technology services distributors are part of the same team. Our relationships matter, and we are all better together. We deserve a term that honors all of that.”
Check out a summary of the debate.
Direct-selling agents spoke out about the pain points and concerns consolidation is causing.
Previously when agents complained about M&A, they were talking about carrier consolidation. But now that conversation has extended to the service distributors.
For Christopher Scott, who owns an agency, neither vendor consolidation nor distributor consolidation presents a problem. But the combination could limit choices and protection for smaller partners.
“No one thing is really a terrible ill. It’s the way that they all fit together that is putting the end user – our clients – and subagents at risk, and limiting the degree to which we can do something about it,” he said.
Read parts one and two of our consolidation series.
ARG added to the growing number of agent acquisitions.
Technology consultancy and MSP purchased two telecom consultancies in two months. Most recently longtime ARG partner Freedom Solutions Group joined the fold.
Read more about ARG’s strategy.
The B2B technology marketplace provider is urging partners to diversify their portfolios.
AppSmart preached the importance of cross-selling energy, cloud and other non-traditional technologies, at its Unleash event.
In addition, AppSmart announced the signing of multiple partners to its Invest program. Most recently NXTSYS took funding from AppSmart and entered into an exclusive relationship with the company.
Read about the Invest program news and the Unleash event.
Europe seems to be warming to the services distributor (master agent) model.
Consider ScanSource-owned cloud distribution unit intY, which launched a new practice in Europe. One of their executives said that some partners are reevaluating “the sanity of the margin” that comes with reselling.
“I think people are realising they can still own that relationship, or work with different vendors by adopting this model, and still get there. That’s one of the big reasons why it’s now starting to take off,” he said.
Check out the report Christine Horton published.
More and more service distributors are turning to CableFinder for help improving the connectivity sales process.
Pax8 and Avant are among the firms that most recently adopted CableFinder as a tool to help their MSP and consultancy partners more accurately and quickly sell cable. And for many vendors that are trying to draw MSPs into the connectivity space, it’s imperative that the industry simplifies the process.
We spoke to CableFinder’s co-founders and two key cableco partner execs about the opportunity.
Speaking of Pax8, the cloud distributor improved its partner training through an acquisition.
Pax8 purchased Sea-Level Operations, an education company whose courses will range from business fundamentals to technical training. The acquisition came months after Pax8 acquired U.K.-based wirehive.
In addition, Pax8 added multiple vendor partners, including Axcient and BitTitan.
Learn about the acquistion.
Platinum Equity finished its $7.2 billion acquisition of the world’s largest technology distributor.
A few months after Synnex agreed to buy Tech Data and create a $57 billion company, Ingram Micro officially came under Platinum Equity leadership. Tom Gores’ private equity firm announced the deal back in December.
Ingram Micro also added a robotic processing automation (RPA) vendor and launched a program to help partners bolster their AWS practices.
Read about the Platinum Equity acquisition.
UCaaS vendor 8×8 added a distribution partner.
Westcon will distribute 8×8’s offering. The partnership initially centers on the U.K. and Ireland but should help them move deeper into Europe.
Edward Gately wrote about how Westcon’s existing Microsoft partnership relates to 8×8’s partnership.
UCaaS vendor 8×8 added a distribution partner.
Westcon will distribute 8×8’s offering. The partnership initially centers on the U.K. and Ireland but should help them move deeper into Europe.
Edward Gately wrote about how Westcon’s existing Microsoft partnership relates to 8×8’s partnership.
Distributors and aggregators of technology products and services are jockeying for global dominance.
Welcome to our second-quarter distribution recap, where we sum up the biggest events of the last three months. We saw multiple acquisitions from companies like Nuvias, Pax8 and Telarus, and we saw numerous vendors turn to distribution to expand their sales footprint.
Before we get into it, we might as well address the elephant in the room. Why are we lumping distributors into the same category as what we’ve historically called master agents? Does an Ingram Micro really compare to a TBI? Admittedly, one model relies on a resale model while another relies on commissions. However, both the traditional disti and what we’re for now calling a services distributor (i.e. master agent) work as an intermediary between the technology supplier and the direct-selling partner. They voice the concerns of their agents and resellers to the vendors and provide a sort of herd immunity. Moreover, both company types are leaning deeper into cloud services and recurring revenue. And both are working to educate and train their partner bases to sell more. And some companies, like Pax8, are straddling the line between both business models.
Check out the slideshow above to see the latest news in the channel.
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