Don’t let economic uncertainty fool you, there’s still plenty of growth opportunities for MSPs and other Ingram Micro partners.

That’s according to Victor Baez (pictured), Ingram Micro‘s senior vice president of global cloud sales. He gave a keynote on growth opportunities for Ingram Micro partners during day two of Ingram Micro’s Global Cloud and Innovation Summit (GCIS).

“There are plenty of growth opportunities in the market today,” he said. “Last year at Ingram Micro Cloud Summit in Miami, we talked about how hyperscalers were driving a lot of growth in and across the industry, north of 30% if memory serves. This year, when aggregating rates across hyperscalers based on their most recent earnings reports, we see growth decelerated and floating around the upper teens. The root cause of this deceleration is mostly due to large enterprise customers optimizing what they migrated to cloud to accommodate for tighter opex budgets.”

However, inside these decelerated numbers, there are different growth patterns, with more workloads moving to cloud environments than ever before, Baez said.

“Most hyperscalers and analysts will tell you that more than 80%, some might state 90%, of workloads are still not hosted in a cloud environment,” he said. “Adding to the growth opportunity for channel partners are enterprises who are short-staffed, budget-constrained and need demonstrable benefits with clear outcomes driven from their technology investments.”

What Ingram Micro Partners Should Look For

Many companies are looking to modernize their applications onto a cloud environment so they can lower costs of maintaining their infrastructure while deploying solutions faster, Baez said. They want solutions that enhance employee experience, increase productivity and improve customer satisfaction.

“As a result, we are seeing a growing trend around application modernization,” he said.

Ingram Micro partners such as Netlusion in Germany are using the support given by Ingram Micro’s modern apps solutions team to capture these opportunities, Baez said.

“Partners such as Trace3 also leverage Ingram Micro’s investments in professional services to expedite solution delivery of smaller workloads to their customers,” he said. “These are just some of the examples of hyper-growth opportunities that you can participate in without having to make major upfront investments because Ingram Micro already made them and will continue to make them on your behalf.”

Another growth practice for which Ingram Micro provides augmentation is seamless security, Baez said. This is the ability to help partners and their customers with security posture without compromising the experience. Over the last couple of years, as more associates work from anywhere, attack surfaces have expanded, and data protection has become an even greater priority.

Businesses Need Help with Security

Today’s businesses continue to face staff shortages and need more help maintaining an adequate security posture, Baez said.

“Partners such as Infinitum Technologies have leveraged our … cybersecurity program to get quickly enabled on seamless security solutions, helping companies such as McMullen Nolan Group maintain their applications and endpoints securely,” he said. “These partners have been able to use Ingram Micro’s broad solution portfolio, technical support and multiple vendor competencies, and most importantly our communities, programs and now platform to win opportunities and grow their business faster.”

It’s a hybrid world, and one where digital transformation is not slowing down, Baez said. That’s one of the reasons GCIS has evolved to focus on innovation and digital transformation versus cloud alone.

“Growth is permeating in areas that are not running 100% in a public cloud environment,” he said. “Our data tells us that the average customer is obtaining true business outcomes by combining products and services from at least six different vendors, and many times running hybrid environments. This is why solution selling matters, and our growth solutions were created to provide you the support you need to succeed.”

Managing the Customer Life Cycle

Solution selling is not about having certifications, Baez said. It’s about Ingram Micro providing augmentation services from proven, successful practices that thousands of customers leverage around the world.

“Another area to consider is …

… effectively managing the customer life cycle,” he said. “Doing so removes uncertainty in our business and yours. Are customers using everything that they have subscribed to? How are they using these services and is there an opportunity to add more products? Stay close to your customers. Find more ways to add value. Become an indispensable part of their team.”

Last year, companies that had strong net revenue retention (NRR) rates were growing faster than their peers, Baez said.

“More precisely, companies with 110% NRR were growing 45% faster than companies with 100% NRR,” he said. “And 100% NRR is not necessarily bad, but companies that retain their baseline effectively sell more to existing customers and are able to acquire new customers more rapidly. We are now able to help you across all of your recurring business.”

Bringing Ingram Micro Partners Certainty

Even though Ingram Micro partners may see, hear or even be experiencing slower top-line growth, there are many ways Ingram Micro can, is and will continue to bring more certainty to partners’ business, Baez said.

“With greater collaboration comes greater growth and success,” he said. “We see this happening throughout our business and yours. In my conversations with many of you, almost everyone’s business is much bigger than it was just two to three years ago. Growth comparisons across a pandemic year might be tough. However there are double or even triple-digit growth opportunities within our customer base.”

Looking ahead, there will be a mixed model of hypergrowth coexisting among slower-growth areas, Baez said.

“But at the heart of it all will always be a relentless focus on NRR,” he said. “This is what gives us a seat at the table to add more services, solutions and in turn drives growth and profitability. This is our time – all of us – to take action together and bring more certainty to the table for everyone through greater collaboration and more meaningful interactions.”