Vendor Relationships

CF: What are the the implications of the solutions integrator model when it comes to how you engage with vendors? 

DB: I think it’s going to do two things. First, it will probably mean we engage with fewer vendors. I’m going to say something that is going to seem counterintuitive; I want fewer things in our portfolio and ultimately fewer customers that we focus on. Because I want to focus on picking a set of things that we’re absolutely great at – not just running the inventory list.

That’s tremendously valuable to our partners, because at the end of the day, they’re going be able to count on us more and because we’re going to have more leverage with customers that we can then bring to them. The relationship with partners is typically a two-way street. Sometimes they bring us in, and sometimes we bring them in. There’s a lot of different ways that works. Building more strength with customers and longer term relations customers makes us more attractive to partners. Ultimately, we’ll probably focus more with fewer partners.