TD Synnex UK&I MD Dave Watts delivered big on the soundbites as he took to the stage at the distributor’s first in-person Vendor Summit since Covid.
Here we round up six of the main talking points from the event.
Striking statement 1:
“The inbox is aggressive, and it bites”
TD Synnex has “worked hard to show leadership” on the newer topics adding to industry leaders’ workloads, Watts claimed.
These include DE&I, sustainability, managing multiple generations within a workforce and hybrid working.
“These things were barely on anyone’s business agenda 10 years ago,” Watt said.
TD Synnex’s board has spent “one third to one half” of its time striving to understand and create “muscular action plans” to address these newer topics, Watts said.
“The inbox is aggressive, and it bites. We all need to address these newer topics, and our channel certainly does,” he said.
“We’ve worked hard on these issues and aim to show leadership here.”
Striking statement 2:
“We’ve been aggressively challenging our gender pay gap”
Zooming in further on one of those topics, DE&I, Watts claimed the percentage of women the distributor has in its top two pay quartiles is now higher than both its top ten vendors and top ten customers.
“In the case of DE&I, we have fundamentally changed our HR policies and hiring practices,” he said.
“And why? We do it because we believe it is right, but also because it makes us a much better partner for our partners and customers.
“We’ve [all] had to take on so much more than we’ve traditionally done, and it’s my belief that we all need to lean more on each other at this time. You can’t do it alone.”
Striking statement 3:
“We will be net zero on scopes 1 and 2 after we replace one pesky boiler system”
Watts also claimed that TD Synnex is showing leadership on sustainability, stressing that it will be net zero on scopes 1 and 2 as soon as it replaces a single “pesky” boiler in its warehouse.
“This year we will be using 100% renewable energy across all four of our sites,” he said, adding that TD Synnex has submitted its net zero goals to the Science Based Targets initiative.
New regulations in mainland Europe compelling public sector organisations to buy refurbished, reused or recycled kit (including in France) are “creeping into the UK”, Business Unit Director Sophia Haywood-Atkinson remarked, meanwhile.
Striking statement 4:
“We should see more stability”
The market “should see more stability” in 2024 following a tough 2023 period that saw UK&I distribution sales plunge 10%, Watts claimed.
Last year was the first for over a decade that the IT market did not outgrow GDP, he noted.
The number of UK&I reseller accounts TD Synnex traded with during the period also fell by around 500 to 11,000, he added.
“The higher percentage endpoint products are of a reseller’s sales, the harder 2023 was for them,” Watts said.
“We are starting to see [some insolvencies] and the data tells us to be careful about some of those partner positions.”
But, wielding data from Context, Watts predicted that UK&I channel sales will begin to bounce back in the second half of 2024 (an economist was also wheeled onto stage at one point – see above – to testify that the market “has turned a corner”).
“Context’s prediction for the year is 2% growth. H1 will still be negative growth and H2 will be around 5% growth, which seems like a really reasonable forecast to me,” Watts said.
“The last 12 months was very difficult to forecast, but we should see more stability, and that’s certainly the market we are currently seeing.”
Striking statement 5:
“Partners need real stimulation on AI”
Partners want to see “credible use cases” on GenAI, Watts asserted as he acknowledged that it is “very early on in what is going to be possibly the most transformative technology ever”.
TD Synnex’s own research found that 29% of its channel partners were working with AI solutions in 2023, six times more than the previous year.
“What is really critical is that partners need some real stimulation,” Watts added, however.
“They need stimulation to see the art of the possible – what can really happen at a small and medium customer level.”
Watts added: “The initial big wins will be in productivity and efficiency. We should absolutely be in awe of what AI can do that isn’t around those things, but in reality AI needs paying for.”
Striking statement 6:
“All distributors are not the same”
Watts was eager to dispel suggestions that all distributors are the same in his closing remarks.
“We believe no one else does what we do – not to the same breadth, and certainly not to the same depth,” he told the assembled vendors in his closing remarks.
“I’m hoping that what we described to you today, and so much else we do, you won’t find in other distributors,” he added.
“Our belief is we are utility to our partners – we trade with the vast majority of resellers in the UK and we support selling your solutions. We build e-commerce platforms on which your solutions sit, so they don’t have to. We drive our customers’ renewals of your products, so you don’t need to. And we manage our customers’ cloud consumption and billing – at great expense – something they could not do for themselves.
“And we build their capabilities – technical and sales resources – taking your propositions to the channel – and help them diversify their businesses as we go along and build new practices working with you alongside them to transform their businesses in such a fast-changing market.”
“So my request is this: Please give us more of your time. Ask more of us. Give us more of your investment,” Watts urged the audience of assembled vendors.
“Partner with us differently and utilise the capabilities only we have.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
