Westcon-Comstor Integration Tops 2018 Synnex Strategy

… PC tiered incentive program that includes: platinum, gold, silver and authorized levels, which are tied to specific revenue thresholds: $10 million+ for Platinum, $1 million+ for Gold, $250,000+ for Silver, and up to $250,000 for Authorized partners. The tier levels are also tied to training requirements for employees.

Per Kinlaw, the new PC partner program offers more structured benefits and account coverage; rewards loyalty and success; offers formalized designations to differentiate and respond to bids; promises not to disadvantage partners; provides access to a full suite of channel marketing and incentives; and, the launch is based on annual revenue thresholds for the Lenovo fiscal year from April to April.

A new partner portal rolled out with the new Lenovo Partner Engage Program provides access to the benefits, resources, sales, training, and more.

TJ Fox, senior vice president, wireless enterprise sales, at Verizon, told the audience that Synnex’s focus on cloud, mobility, security, and IoT fits in with Verizon’s strategy, and that the company has increased its investment with Synnex, a long-term distribution partner, and is busy creating the future with 5G while expanding 4G innovation.

Fox also focused Verizon efforts with partners in the areas of VARs and activation, which has increased significantly year over year; he talked about the growth of One Talk, that launched almost one year ago, 4G LTE routers, IoT and telematics.

Christoph Schell, president of the Americas with HP Inc., talked about the growth of the company’s PC and print business, the delivery of a full A3 portfolio, and the company’s moves into the 3D print market. In the 3D arena, HP has recruited 45 partners and opened 20 reference and experience centers, worldwide, and has gone from 3D prototyping to manufacturing.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for some of you to participate,” he said, suggesting some adjacent businesses that partners could pursue, pointing to device as a service, for example, which he noted that HP has simplified. Schell also mentioned that HP has introduced an agnostic partnership with Apple, which offers management and service opportunities for partners.

Terry Richardson, vice president and general manager, U.S. channel sales. HPE, highlighted how the company has reshaped itself and its strategic focus on hybrid IT, i.e. composable infrastructure, all-flash storage and industry-standard compute, in-memory analytics, memory-driven computing, and The Machine. At the same time, there’ve been innovations in the intelligent edge, i.e. mobile-first wireless, edge computing, and location-based services.

Synnex is authorized to sell the entire HPE portfolio.

HPE’s channel favorites include: hyperconverged systems, Simplivity; storage, i.e. Nimble and 3Par; HPE Compute Gen 10, Aruba networking; and the recently renamed HPE Pointnext services.