11 Scenes From Ingram Micro's Seismic Partner Conference

Ingram Micro held its second annual Seismic Partner Conference the week of August 11, 2008, in Chicago. The distributor's vice president of services, Justin Crotty, had plenty to smile about. The event attracted nearly 180 managed service providers, double the amount from the group's first show last fall.

Ingram Micro now has about 750 MSPs using the Seismic platform and 13 managed service vendor partners. Crotty hopes to increase the number of customers to 1,000 by the end of the year, and the distributor plans to add two or three new offerings per quarter.

During his keynote session, Crotty stressed to MSPs that they should be looking to market their own value and their own offerings to end users. He asked the audience of MSPs if they include vendor names on their business cards.

"Don't do that in the MSP space. You are the brand. You are the vendor. Market your organization. I'm not saying you don't need vendor relationships in your business, but if you don't market yourself under your own value, your customer can't differentiate you from someone else if you're under the vendor's brand," he said.

Many of the conference's sessions were led by MSPs themselves, not vendors. Michael Minnich, president and CEO at NetGain Information Systems, DeGraff, Ohio, provided an overview of his business. He advised fellow MSPs to take an active part in transitioning their business to a services-led model.

"Assess your resources. Take action. Keep score. Make strategy a habit. Keep people on the same page," Minnich said. "You have to build a culture of accountability and ownership for your employees.

Ingram Micro handed out several awards at the Seismic show. Jerry Adomwicz, CTO of Gekko-Tek, Vancouver, Wash., received the Seismic MVP award from Carol Lawler, services development specialist, Ingram Micro Services Division. Other finalists were Port-to-Port Communications in Indianapolis and Varsity Technologies in San Francisco.

Mark Fitzpatrick and Scott Spiro of Computer Solutions Group Inc., left and second from left, of Computer Solutions Group, Los Angeles, received the Seismic "Kool-Aid" Award from Gabriel Balo, services development manager and Lawler. Crotty named this award to honor MSPs who truly believe in Ingram's Seismic program. Technology Consulting Services, Olympia, Wash., and Technology Resource Advisors, Milwaukee, were also finalists.

MSPs weren't the only winners. Ed Giovanucci, an Ingram Micro salesman, received a sales champion award from the distributor for his work in the Seismic program. Renee Lovenio, services development manager, presented the award to Giovanucci.

Neil Medwed, president of Preferred Technologies, Richardson, Texas, left, received the Top Seismic Revenue Growth Partner award from Jason Beal, director of sales for Ingram Micro's Services Division. Other nominees were Intertech of Phoenix and Lincoln Computer of Hicksville, N.Y.

Sushil Patel, president of Entre Solutions, Savannah, Ga., right, received the Seismic Top Rookie Award from Ingram Micro's Beal. Other finalists were AJ Maddox Technologies from The Colony, Texas, and Chelsea Technologies from New York.

A panel of vendor executives echoed Crotty's earlier statements regarding MSPs needing to market themselves to customers.

"We have the capabilities of co-branding a portal and putting a partner's logo on that. We're all working hard to make sure it's your brand, not the vendor's brand," said Ken Totura, vice president of channel sales, MX Logic, at left.

Other panelists included, from second to left: Sam Van Ryder, vice president of channels at Alert Logic, Jeff Cozzaglio, vice president of channel sales at LogMeIn, and Zak Karsan, director of channel sales at VaultLogix. At right, Brodie Kirkeby, services portfolio manager for Ingram Micro Seismic, hosted the panel.

After last year's event, the Seismic community asked Ingram Micro to have more business- and strategy-focused sessions at this year's conference, as they didn't want to feel overwhelmed by vendors' sales pitches. Ingram Micro listened. In Chicago, the vendors' modest booths were located in a hallway, which allowed VARs to talk more comfortably with vendors of their choosing. Here, two unidentified MSP executives talk with an Autotask representative.

Computer Solutions Group's Fitzpatrick and Spiro led several breakout sessions for other MSPs. Attendees talked about mistakes they've made and strategies that worked as they built their managed services business.