A top Ingram Micro executive last night compared the B2C-like experience offered by its Xvantage platform to “Netflix”, as he credited it with the distributor’s “fast” recovery from its recent ransomware attack.
Ingram Micro’s President Global Platform Group, Sanjib Sahoo, by our calculations said the word “platform’” 96 times as he gave a walk-through of Xvantage – which Ingram launched in 2022.
“We are becoming a platform company, doing platform business,” he proclaimed.
Sahoo began the hour-long demo by crediting Ingram’s recovery from this month’s ransomware attack partly to Xvantage.
“Platform companies are resilient,” he said.
“The fact we could turn back our operations pretty fast and quickly is because of the breadth and ability of our Xvantage platform.”
“My first hire was from Instagram”
Boasting annual revenues of $48bn, NYSE-listed Ingram ranked 4th in IT Channel Oxygen’s Top 50 Must-Know UK IT Distributors 2024.
Although Ingram has only recently begun aggressively restyling itself as a platform company, its Xvantage journey started four years ago under Sahoo.
“Everybody uses the term AI – we didn’t do that,” Sahoo recalled.
“Four years ago, the first thing we did was look at all the data we had – more than 40 years – and start with building a real-time data mesh. The first hire I brought in from outside was the Chief Data Officer from Instagram.”
Ingram has also recruited talent from the likes of Google, Meta and Amazon in its quest to bring a B2C-like experience to B2B, Sahoo stressed. This is a tough ask in an IT industry where the average quote takes three people, 12 people and up to 72 hours, he acknowledged.
“We know B2B is hard, it’s complex, it’s challenging, it has longer sales cycles and quoting. But B2C is blurring with B2B, and everybody wants a different experience in B2B right now – we want consumerisation in B2B,” he said.
“Does it look like a distribution platform to you?”
Sahoo walked through the Xvantage experience for ‘Nora’, a representative of a fictional midmarket MSP.
The platform acts as a “single pane of glass” that provides a personalised performance for each user, he claimed.
“Does it look like a distribution platform to you?” he asked.
“Everything here is personalised for Nora. What Nora is doing is a self-learning platform; every single interaction, the platform is learning. All of this is real-time and is driving calls to action for Nora. You can get all your orders, quotes, renewals, subscriptions, you can look at active quotes, your credit information, invoices, returns and claims, insights.
“These are all personalised widgets – kind of like Netflix, but it’s personalised for your experience.”
Sahoo showed how Xvantage uses AI to flag up warranty and cross-sell opportunities for resellers. It can also recommend customer prospects based on geography, he added.
“Generally, a few years ago in this industry we were hearing, ‘we fly kind of blind with our distributors’. But here you are getting real-time data as a platform for Nora to do business with us. This is not just an e-commerce platform,” Sahoo said.
Sahoo also gave a real-life example of an MSP he claimed is using Xvantage to save 10-15 hours per person, per week, in the form of UK-based Viadex.
“We’re solving a bigger problem for this industry”
With Pax8 and other distribution-type businesses also aggressively restyling themselves, what makes Xvantage stand out from other platforms, Sahoo was asked in the Q&A.
He claimed Xvantage is “solving a problem for the entire B2B IT industry” by “seamlessly” connecting vendors, resellers and end users – as well as hyperscaler marketplaces. The channel is no longer “linear”, he declared.
“We’re solving a bigger problem for this industry, and that is why Xvantage is different,” Sahoo said.
“You can look at the building blocks with the data mesh AI factory we have, having a platform for every single persona, solving special pricing and real-time pricing, having complex quotes and configurations in minutes and seconds, driving insights, doing integrations to meet our partners where they are – that’s the platform.
“I want to say again there is a clear difference between a platform supporting distribution, versus becoming a platform business.
“Xvantage is that platform business.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
