Newsflash spoke to Christina Mavromatis, sales director, SMB UK&I, TD SYNNEX, about why SMB customers continue to be at the front and centre of the company’s focus
Q: Why does SMB matter so much to TD SYNNEX?
A: ‘SMB has always mattered to TD SYNNEX and it matters more than anything else quite frankly, because it’s where the vast majority of our business comes from. Yes, we have some very big customers who spend a lot of money with us. But most of our business still comes from the SMB market, through the thousands of partners who serve the needs of the small business community in the UK and Ireland.’
Q: And why does TD SYNNEX matter so much to SMB partners?
A: ‘For SMB partners, TD SYNNEX is not just a vital source of hardware and software products, it’s the place where they come for professional services, for pre-shipment configuration and tailored deliveries and for specialist consultancy. It’s also where they come for enablement and education in areas like the cloud and cybersecurity. Or to learn about the relevance and opportunities that might exist for new and emerging technologies, such as IOT and AI.
‘I think there are quite a lot of SMB partners that do depend on us quite a lot for a variety of solutions and services. And of course, it’s worth mentioning that we are a big provider of credit for the channel and run various finance programmes, like TaaS [Tech as a Service] that can be really helpful both to partners and customers who want to invest in technology today, but perhaps can’t find the up-front capital to do that and don’t want to take out a loan. Those options are really useful in the public sector as well as the commercial market.
We’ve put a lot of focus into making ourselves one of the leaders in the drive to get the UK&I channel to net zero carbon
‘On top of all that, when you look at an area like sustainability, we’ve become the go-to distributor there as well for partners. We’ve put a lot of focus into making ourselves one of the leaders in the drive to get the UK&I channel to net zero carbon. That’s something we see as being the right thing to do – and I think it’s important that we try to beat a path for partners on that and on ESG more widely, and on DE&I.’
Q: What do those who have their own capability to provide services, support, config’ and so on, need from you?
A: ‘Of course, there are many SMB partners that have their own services and support capabilities and they don’t need us to do everything. Even then, I don’t think there are many partners – aside from the very biggest in the UK – who can claim to have the capability to do everything. To be specialists in not only in business solutions, but also in areas like the cloud and cybersecurity, where we have some real expertise. I think that you could go to just about any of the 6000 or so customers we deal with in the UK and find that they use us for at least one or two more services other than simple product fulfilment.
‘Even when it is just the products and the software licences and perhaps some public cloud services that they need, we can provide them with self-service tools, which are available 24-hours-a-day and quick, simple, efficient ways to get important work done. With our Software Stores for example (I think there are about 15 of them now), we provide partners with a really good and effective way to see what licence renewals they have coming up and provide quotes for their customers. Once approved, they can very easily get the renewal processed. That’s an incredibly useful tool that saves partners a lot of time and gives them the best possible chance of not missing out on repeat business.
We’ve got an incredible breadth of capability on cloud and that’s as important to SMB partners as it is to enterprise partners
‘Another great example is StreamOne Ion, our cloud aggregation platform, which gives partners a way to provision, monitor, manage and track billing of cloud consumption. That’s a really important tool for our partners and one that underpins all the other enablement and expertise we offer on cloud. We’ve got an incredible breadth of capability on cloud and that’s as important to SMB partners as it is to enterprise partners. We’re the only distributor to offer all three of the major hyperscalers.
‘There are other things that we can do for SMB partners as well. If they have a real interest in a particular area market or technology, for example, they can apply for one of our enablement programmes or get involved in one of our partner ecosystems. If they need to provide specialist audio visual or design solutions, our Maverick and Datech teams can help.
‘If they want to see a particular technology in action or demonstrate it to customers, such as a Surface Hub 3, for example, that can be done in one of our technology centres in Basingstoke and Bracknell. There really is a lot on offer – a lot we can do to help SMB partners, whatever the scope and range of their own capabilities.’
Q: Many everyday processes are now digitised, automated and available 24/7, but you also need to provide a human touch on occasions. How do you do that at TD SYNNEX?
A: ‘Yes, of course, you do need to provide customers with a means by which they can talk to a human being and we do that through our customer services team. We’ve done quite a bit of work on that over the past year and the feedback is that we’ve massively improved the process and the response times. Meeting the individual needs of 6000 or more customers and trying to stay slick and efficient has always and will always be a challenge, and we are always learning and improving. One thing we do know is that we can never allow ourselves to get complacent – we must always try to do a better job for all our customers. On the whole, I’d like to think we get it right most of the time, or just about all of the time for most customers, and that when we don’t, we take decisive action.
Q: How do you see this mix of dependencies and balances developing and changing? What’s going to influence it?
A: ‘Partner needs are always changing, which is why we need to keep developing new programmes and services. That’s a never-ending process. I think if you look at the business transformation that’s been taking place, that’s where you will see the indicators for what we’re going to need in the future. As technology has become more complex and end user customers have become more dependent on their IT, it’s become clear that no single partner can ever do it all – we need to work together much more than we have in the past. Already, there is more of an interdependency between ourselves and many partners and I think we will also see more alliances between partners with different skills and capabilities.
We are fully aware that our customers depend on our platforms and this makes it even more important for us to keep working to ensure our systems are run reliably and consistently
‘The degree to which we are all dependent on IT systems working reliably now was demonstrated quite recently by the ripple effect of the CrowdStrike update that did not go according to plan. That impacted organisations big and small and illustrated just how dependent we are on IT systems, both within the IT industry and outside it. We are fully aware that our customers depend on our platforms and this makes it even more important for us to keep working to ensure our systems are run reliably and consistently.’
Q: How are the needs of SMB partners themselves changing and developing – how is that shaping TD SYNNEX’s strategy and approach to investment?
A: ‘Different partners will always have different needs. What we have to do is look at what they need collectively and individually and try to draw all of that together. I think we’ve been evolving into a business that’s capable of doing that for many years now and we’ll need to get even better and more precise at balancing all those needs out and providing the right information and resources to the right partners at the right time. That’s something we’ve been working on quite intensively and we’re starting to make some real headway there.’
We absolutely need our SMB partners and customers and we know that we have to keep working hard to earn their business
Q: How would you like to see your relationships with SMB partners developing?
A: ‘I’d like and I’d hope our relationships will become progressively more open and positive than they are already. We’ve come a long way in the last few years. We absolutely need our SMB partners and customers and we know that we have to keep working hard to earn their business. From the partner perspective, I think there is now a recognition that they do need TD SYNNEX to provide both essential supporting services and the automated and self-service processes that drive efficiency and the best customer experiences. We and our partners need to keep working to understand each other even better and to make the best use of all the resources available to us.’
