Greg Myers, vice-president of Tech Data Canada, says the distributor currently works with about 250 vendors in the Canadian marketplace. Its business focus lies in the commercial value-added reseller (VAR) space, with a focus on business products for small businesses, which have the ability to scale all the way up to large-sized organizations.
At the summit, Tech Data announced two new programs for vendors and partners, its Eco-Technology program and a System Builder program. The new programs, Myers says, will be available beginning February 1, 2009.
The Eco-Technology program is a way for vendors to promote and educate customers about what they’re doing to stay environmentally-friendly. The System Builder Program offers Tech Data’s system builder community the resources, training and skills needed in order to succeed in this space.
With the demand for and growth of notebooks in today’s PC industry, Myers says the number of desktop builds are down. Once Tech Data’s System Builder Program becomes available, he says participants can take advantage of the program to help increase overall awareness levels.
“Awareness always leads to the further investigation of business opportunities,” Myers said.
Tech Data Canada president, Rick Reid, is flanked by Greg Milkovich of Belkin and Ron Hulse of Samsung. Tech Data sits down with its vendor partners to help them determine which programs and activities are best suited for them. During this time, partners are also able to discuss customization elements to the programs as well, he added.
Freda Kostrzewa of Tech Data, and Andrea Irvine from CA, were in attendance at the event.
In addition to announcing two new programs at the summit, Tech Data also said it will also focus on several key areas for the 2009 year.
“Storage continues to be an area of growth in the marketplace and more resellers are gaining more certification and expertise in that area,” he said. The storage marketplace, which was initially geared towards the enterprise market, has now become an equal playing ground for SMB resellers too, he added.
Shawn Rowat of ViewSonic, was just one of the many vendor partners at the summit.
Myers also said Tech Data will also keep a focus on the notebook market, virtualization solutions, VoIP, unified communications (UC) and Internet-based telephony.
“UC is one of those areas that’s really easy for partners to articulate the value proposition and cost benefits associated with the solutions,” Myers said. “We have a lot of resources, programs and growth expectations around these areas.”
Andrew Weir of HP, together with Jillian Cahill and Oliver Voss, both of Tech Data, see the benefits of partnerships.
In light of the recent economic downturn, Myers said Tech Data Canada hasn’t really seen a “material impact” on its business.
“Businesses will be under more pressure to meet their objectives and CEOs will be more focused on execution rather than on growth,” Myers said. “But my message to partners (is) to manage their costs carefully, to focus on execution and to deliver a superior customer experience.”
Myers says Tech Data’s partner community is critical to its business because it’s central to the company’s existence.
“Our only reason for being here is to service vendors and resellers in successfully executing their businesses in the marketplace,” he said. “We’ll continue to focus on operational excellence to help them in 2009.”
This year’s annual Tech Data Vendor Partner Summit, which took place in October in Mississauga, drew over 400 technology executives and professionals, including more than 120 vendor partners.
The distributor used this year’s summit to announce its lineup of new channel marketing initiatives and programs, which are all slated to come into effect in 2009.