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December 2008 | Volume 11/ Number 12
Reseller Interview

Talking with Chuck Bartlett, Vice President of Tech Data’s Networking Division

By: Richard “Zippy” Grigonis

There are many specialized VoIP and IP Communications resellers out there. But Tech Data (News - Alert) Corporation (www.techdata.com) of Clearwater, Florida, a huge distributor of microcomputer-related hardware and software products to Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and retailers, has cleverly created a group of internal special business units working within the larger organization and capable of calling upon Tech Data’s vast resources.

Our own Richard “Zippy” Grigonis recently sat down with Chuck Bartlett, Vice President of Tech Data’s Networking Division, who explained it all to us.

RG: How is Tech Data structured for these specialty units?

CB: I run the entire Networking Division. That’s set up in two sites in my organization. Todd Gronemeyer runs what we call the Networking Business, and he’s one director on my staff. We also have a Cisco (News - Alert) Practice, which is the other half of our business, run by a separate director on my staff. Our networking business comprises all of the technologies out there today that are sold by our networking partners: switching, routing, wireless, surveillance, telephony, and so forth.




Todd Gronemeyer is Director of our Networking Division. Within Todd’s organization we have three Specialized Business Units (SBUs): the Telephony Specialized Business Unit, a Wireless Specialized Business Unit, and a Physical Security Specialized Business Unit which is essentially deals with surveillance and access control. The SBUs are set up as totally independent entities within the division. For example, telephony has its own sales team, product team, systems engineering and product management, with everything fully confined within the SBU and it’s targeted specifically at our reseller partners that have practices that specialize in telephony. All of the salespeople and product support people in the SBU carry multiple vendor certifications, so when a telephony reseller calls in and starts talking about telephony solutions, they’re talking with somebody who actually understands what they’re saying because they’re educated and certified in this area.

The purpose behind Tech Data’s SBU structure is to take our size, scope and scale – a $25 billion company that sells a lot of technologies to a lot of people – and to create within it a vertical technology focus so we could, frankly, compete favorably against specialized distributors or Value-Added Distributors [VADs] as you might classify some of them, in these high-growth technology verticals. Telephony was the first unit we started five years ago, followed by Physical Security and then Wireless.

RG: Sounds like you’ve created a sort of internal conglomerate.

CB: Well, the three technology SBUs within Networking were set up because of the nature of those technologies – they’re high-growth and each needs a different type of focus for the resellers in order for the resellers to succeed with the end user and for us to succeed with the reseller. We see a lot of convergence among those SBUs. For example, Physical Security Surveillance ties into the Wireless SBU very tightly because it’s an application that typically rides on a wireless network. We also see Wireless and Telephony converging as IP systems start to become nodes or access points on a wireless network. The technologies are converging and, fortunately, we can address that convergence as it happens, and it’s certainly happening in the IP telephony world today.

Tech Data has other SBUs too. The reason the first three reside in Networking is because networking tends to be the core technology, and the reseller base tends to be the proper base which to target and expand into these technologies, so it made sense to hold those three in Networking instead of the other ones in other product divisions.

Unlike a typical VAR, a Telephony VAR has a different set of questions and needs in terms of what they’re looking for from a distributor. We needed to make sure that we had a team in place that could “talk the talk” with them and support them in the right manner and be able to talk to them about solution selling and not just box-pushing. That’s the concept behind the SBU. It’s why we have these people trained and certified in the technology so they can properly support those particular customers and their needs.

The education of resellers has always been a part of this. I think that’s the value that we see in the SBU. Frankly, one of the things we look for is tighter entanglement with our reseller partners, so if they run up against something they don’t quite understand but we have a resource, they can call us in order to understand it better and be able to close a sale with an end user. We feel that will benefit us because it will make them much more likely for them to come to us when the actual purchase occurs. So much of what an SBU does is work on the front end, in the concept design stage, and by working with Tech Data to do that, obviously we believe that we’ve earned that business and people are thus more likely to come back to deal with us.

RG: So if they need 20 boxes, you’re right there.

CB: Correct. Certainly from a telephony standpoint, and even generally from a Networking Division standpoint, we moved quite some time ago away from selling products to selling solutions. Your comment on 20 boxes is pertinent. A customer may need phones, a switch, or whatever. But if all we’re selling is a product, then from a price standpoint we can get “shopped out” of the market very easily. There are a number of competitors out there who can supply any particular product at a competitive price. But by providing a solution, there’s more value in the sale, and it’s less likely that we’ll get shopped as hard – not that we won’t feel competitive pressures at all – but again, we enjoy more entanglement, partnership and loyalty when we’re working with a reseller to sell a solution than when we’re just pricing a single product to ship out the back door.

Perhaps a solution will require just 20 boxes of a product, but generally in such a situation not all 20 boxes are going to be one product, such a telephones, especially if you’re talking about a Voice-over-IP application. There might be a switch, or some other set of components. Part of the reason that Tech Data feels it’s uniquely positioned in the market to help support communications is that we sell supporting technologies. For example, we sell all related networking gear and equipment that fits around that, where other distributors are just focused on the traditional telephony market and may not have the supporting products that can really establish an entire solution.

Furthermore, if the solution needs a server, we have servers. If it needs storage, we sell storage. If it needs some kind of power back-up, we sell that too. We can leverage the breadth and scope and scale of our $25 billion company, but in a vertical that’s very focused.

RG: In the old days, dealing with IP was a lot more problematic than dealing with the circuit-switched world. I guess it’s now all just part of the mainstream “communications” business. Do you really distinguish between the two that much?

CB: IP is still very involved. What’s probably better understood today – not to mention a lot more prevalent – is the training and education that goes along with selling these kinds of products and solutions in the market. So not only from our standpoint can we at Tech Data provide training regarding our vendors’ products and certifications, but in most cases the vendor community itself now, concerning telephony and some of these higher-end solutions, require certifications of their VAR partners before they are allowed to sell them. So I think there’s a reasonably well-understood process that goes like this: “If I want to sell telephony or wireless solutions into an end customer, here’s what I need to be able to do, and here’s where I go to get it.” They can approach this along many different avenues. I don’t think there are many people just throwing things out into the market and hoping that somebody knows how to make it work.

We sell the most advanced IP-based systems as well as more traditional PBX (News - Alert) type offerings. Tech Data’s core customer base is the IT VAR. They have more knowledge in the convergence space and so it’s easier for them to adopt IP technologies and get into the voice business that way, certainly easier than attempting to learn the whole old world of analog PBX systems. Growth in this area continues. IT

Richard “Zippy” Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC (News - Alert)’s IP Communications Group.

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