Importance of Cybersecurity

CF: Cybersecurity is in massive demand with the constant headlines of ransomware and other attacks. From a vendor perspective, how is TD Synnex providing what resellers and other partners need to protect themselves and their customers?

Neal: That’s a really important area and a big focus of ours while recruiting new vendors, because there are a lot of them out there and it’s not just one security solution that is the be-all and end-all. So you have to have that portfolio of vendors to support. In addition, there are multiple, even in the SMB market. They have multiple security vendors on their line, or within their shop and their data center. And the larger organizations have even more than that. So we’re doing a lot of vetting and making sure that we’re bringing on the best of the best. And again, how does it fit with our line card that we have today and how does it complement what we’re doing?

In addition, we’re leveraging our Cyber Range. The talent shortage is really high in this area, so how can we enable more people to understand the technology and really come out of there, and support our partners and vendors? That’s a huge focus. So doubling down with the vendors we already have, educating and enabling, and then looking for that new security vendor is really important to us.

Kirby: Whether you’re leading any conversation with anybody around which solution you’re going to offer, that’s a really large part of the conversation. But I think we’ve been fortunate because we’ve been able … to build all these security practices. And with our security practice builder, we’ve had all those conversations and we’ve had most of our co-workers go through that training that they’ve been able to bring that knowledge into the conversation, but also apply that knowledge to whatever specific sale they’re in with whatever specific partner supporting that specific vertical.