HOLLYWOOD, FLA. – At Ingram Micros (NYSE: IM) VentureTech Network (VTN) spring invitational conference, Justin Crotty, vice-president of services for Ingram Micro North America, said that the distributor is placing a “heavy investment” on cloud computing this year.
Crotty also urged partners to evaluate their relevance in this space in order to reap the benefits of “net new opportunities and huge margin.”
“The cloud is the next strategic area that we’re working on now, and we’re in heavy investment and build-out mode for the next six months,” he said. “We’re adding staff, vendors, programs and offerings to this into the next year and this will be a big focus for the company.”
Crotty explained the cloud is not a new technology, what’s new is the way in which companies are consuming and deploying it.
Especially on the managed services side of the business, Crotty said the cloud will blend itself into a managed service-type offering when it comes to the delivery method.
To help support its anticipated growth and activity in this space, Crotty said the distributor has its own dedicated division which includes sales, operations and management. He said currently there are 30 employees who work in this division, with the expectation of doubling the headcount over the next 18 months. Crotty could not go into percentage or financial details about just how much of an investment the distributor will be making in the cloud, other than saying it will be “huge.”
“The investment we’ll be making with dedicated tools and resources will be huge,” Crotty said. “And the investment we’ll be making in partnerships with cloud-based providers will be significant.”
In order for partners to be more relevant to their customers in the cloud space, Crotty said partners could focus on areas such as facilities and infrastructure management.
He said there’s “huge margin and net new growth and revenue opportunities” for partners to take advantage of, and said Ingram is working towards becoming the cloud distribution partner of choice for the channel. The distributor will do this by making tools available to help with things like ordering and provisioning, he explained.
Crotty said Ingram will be hosting its first-ever cloud summit on June 7 in Dallas, Tex., just before its Seismic partner conference, which will take place the next day.
“We’ll roll out more details on our cloud plans at the summit,” he explained. “But VTN is very important to us and there are some of the folks that we’ll be talking to as we work to build this (cloud) strategy out.”