Inside the AI Ecosystem: Training, Enablement, and Strategy

Ahead of the game in AI partner development

Neil Cornish, Business Manager for Industry Ecosystems, TD SYNNEX

Even before the AI community growth had got started, the subject was being talked about regularly in all the industry ecosystems meetings and today, it dominates the dialogue, says Neil Cornish, business manager for Industry Ecosystems at TD SYNNEX. ‘We are ahead of the game as we’ve already been discussing AI, where it can be put to use, and the challenges of implementing it for more than five years. When we started the Healthcare group in 2019, about one in four solutions were AI-related and now every solution we see uses AI in some way. We’ve been educating partners and developing use cases, and we can now put that to use within the Destination AI programme as well.’

Destination AI is TD SYNNEX’s end-to end, AI learning and development journey that takes partners to the point where they can confidently discuss AI with customers and where it can be put to use within their business. Awareness is one of the key pillars of the programme and the ecosystems team has provided vital input for the educational content.

To roll out an AI solution that is going to automate processes and deliver real value for a customer requires an understanding of the infrastructure you’ll need to run it

Having an accumulated knowledge of what it takes to bring together an effective AI solution within TD SYNNEX is invaluable, says Neil, as there are multiple aspects partners need to grasp. ‘To roll out an AI solution that is going to automate processes and deliver real value for a customer requires an understanding of the infrastructure you’ll need to run it, the security you’ll need to protect it, and how it will integrate with all the other applications in that customer’s business, as well as the ability to make it all work together.’

The only organisations that have all of these capabilities at present are large systems integrators who are working with enterprise organisations – mostly banks and government. It will be down to the reseller partner community to deliver the benefits of AI to the wider market – to the more than 99%*1 of UK’s 5.5 million businesses that are small medium-sized.

Don’t miss the AI Opportunity!

This is why we need the AI Ecosystem and the Destination AI programme – to provide AI training for partners, help partners become informed and confident on the subject, and to develop realistic and realisable value propositions and the capability to deliver solutions to end user customers.

‘We created the Industry Ecosystems because we saw that there was a need for partners to learn, develop and collaborate together. Today, with AI involved in every aspect of every solution, that has never been more important, because AI is changing everything about how an IT solution is deployed. It’s making everything more complex.’

For most partners Destination AI is the starting point, providing a clear pathway that will enable them to develop their understanding of AI

While it might be tempting, he notes, for partners to wait until there are proven AI solutions that are easier to deliver, customers are curious about AI and want to make use of it in their business as soon as possible. Another finding from the Capgemini report is that AI is now driving an average ROI of nearly 1.7 times, making it something businesses cannot afford to ignore.

‘The concern is that you leave it too late and miss the party. Some mid-market resellers have been buying smaller businesses with AI skills, which means that they can have that discussion with their customers about their AI strategy and offer to help right away. But not everyone can do that [acquire another business], and many partners are not having the conversations [about AI] that their customers want to have with them.’

AI Practice Builder and Strategic Development

For most partners Destination AI is the starting point, providing a clear pathway that will enable them to develop their understanding of AI. For those that want to make a further strategic commitment, there is now an AI Practice Builder, which will take them through a formalised assessment and fully tailored AI partner enablement journey that will also provide support during the early stages of business development.

Additional enablement options

There are further options TD SYNNEX can offer partners who want to set a clear strategy and direction on AI – or work out what approach they should take. Delivered by the Industry Ecosystems team, the Value Proposition Workshop is a one-day session designed to help senior leadership teams decide what solutions or service offerings they are going to take to their customers. The Sales 101 course can be delivered to the whole sales team, equipping them to have meaningful early-stage discussions with customers about AI. This session will include the key elements of the value proposition worked upon during the aforementioned board-level workshop. An introductory course covering the commercialisation of AI is also available.

TD SYNNEX’s overall goal with the AI ecosystem development and all these activities is to create an environment that will help drive new business with AI solutions

Another resource, developed and run by the TD SYNNEX IBM Business Unit, is generating new business potential for partners. Techstories.ai is a news and information website about AI aimed at both partners and end-users. It gets hundreds of hits every month and those leads picked up from the site are passed on to the most appropriate engaged partner. Partner feedback indicates that the quality of the enquiries is improving all the time.