Murai sketches Synnex strategy for near future 2 July, 2009 By Steve Wexler

PromoPipeline Exclusive Channel Promotions Find Out How You Can Make Money Today! ENROLL FREE! >> Factory Direct Should Not be Cheaper William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Cloud Ecosystem II: A Candid Conversation with Oracle Beth Vanni - Amazon Consulting Cloud Ecosystem: A Candid Conversation with Rackspace Hosting Beth Vanni - Amazon Consulting Channel Manager Compensation William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Financial Expertise William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels

Murai said during the last quarter Synnex announced two significant relationships in support of its initiatives in integrated communications and healthcare. In April, it entered into a relationship with Siemens Enterprise Communications Group, becoming a significant addition and the foundation to its unified communications offering. "We carefully evaluated the Siemens portfolio, and believe that their open architecture, single vendor platform for unified communications, including data and security products, plus their unmatched support levels, offer our large reseller base the extra edge they need to succeed in this growth market."

In May, the distributor signed up Allscripts, which provides software, services and connectivity solutions for physicians and hospitals. "Through this relationship, we now offer complete practice management solutions that are designed to immediately benefit physicians by getting them compliant with electronic health records and gaining access to tax credits as part of the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The market for this solution is enormous, as we estimate there are hundreds of thousands of physicians not yet compliant with the new standards."

In Canada the distributor is focused on educating the channel to help them identify and succeed in incremental opportunities, he said. "We have various areas of deeper focus that we can take our VARs to. We see that as big value add for Synnex." These opportunities include data capture, system builder, consumables/supplies and the public sector.

Synnex will also be launching its SMB partner community, Varnex, in Canada shortly, said Murai. Headed by Bob Stegner, the former head of Ingram Micro's VentureTech Network, considered by many to be the gold standard in VAR communities, the Canadian edition will leverage the U.S. version but will reflect the regional differences, said Murai.

Services are a critical component of the distributor's overall business strategy, said Murai. Synnex has been launching a number of different service capabilities to help its VARs be more efficient going to market, including managed print services. Introduced two years ago, PrintSolv has been very successful in the U.S. and will be rolled out in Canada shortly. He said it's an agnostic managed print service that enables VARs to enter a new business.

Murai also plugged his Synnex On Demand Services, a suite of services launched last August. The offering consists of four service segments: On Demand Field Services, On Demand Managed Services, On Demand Edge Services and On Demand Professional Services. As with other managed service initiatives, the channel benefits include recurring revenue streams, longer term contracts with customers and increased profitability profiles; creating greater loyalty between the reseller and the end-user. Based on the itControl Solutions platform, he calls it one of the best-of-breed managed service offerings available.

"We really do our homework when going into new markets. We believe itControl Solutions is one of the best-of-breed partners."

Although slightly outside his forecast comfort zone, Murai thinks the end of October could see a nice bump with the release of Windows 7 on October 22. Systems represent more than a quarter of its distribution business, and sales of netbooks, notebooks and even desktops have been strong.

"Certainly it remains to be seen but there are a number of data points that would kind of draw you to that conclusion. There is still a lot of XP out there and of course that operating system is aging, so there's a need to upgrade. Windows 7 I think provides that platform and the upgrade path in particular from Vista tends to be a little less painless than other Windows Operating System upgrades in the past. Enhanced security features as well, so I think that there could well be some underlying benefits beyond just the Windows 7 release itself when that does happen in October."

Finally, Murai commented on what it was like moving to Synnex after his long career at rival Ingram Micro. He said the things that had impressed him most were the people and corporate culture. "I'm having a lot of fun here. It's such a nice surprise."

He added that the biggest difference was the "winning attitude" at Synnex. "People are not used to not achieving their goals. There's a can-do attitude."

He seemed somewhat surprised that he was having fun in his new job, given the current economic situation. He added that it was "absolutely incredible" how Synnex has done in this time. "As we start coming out of this recession& I believe we will be stronger& and this will define who we are a year from now."