Partners: Ingram Micro Xvantage Mobile App A ‘Game Changer’

‘We did a lot of user research in what the customer wanted to have built in the app,’ says Sanjib Sahoo, EVP and chief digital officer at Ingram Micro. ‘It’s what do they want to do in the app and we took their feedback. This is built on top of that.’

Just over a year after launching its transformative Xvantage platform that makes it easier for partners to do business, Ingram Micro is launching the Xvantage mobile app. And partners believe it’ll be a game changer.

Through automation intelligence and machine learning, Xvantage aims to provide a personalized experience with data insight tailored to each Ingram Micro partner. That’s on top of its real-time transactional benefits such as up-to-the-minute order status, tracking, renewals, subscription billing and real-time customer service capabilities.

The new app will be available to all IT service partners at the end of October. A version for vendors is coming in the future.

James Rocker, founder and CEO of Bohemia, N.Y.-based MSP Nerds that Care, said when he wakes up he doesn’t reach for his laptop, he reaches for his phone.

“So having access now 24/7 at my fingertips is definitely a game changer,” he said.

[Related: Building And Enhancing Xvantage Platform Is A ‘Perpetual Journey’: Ingram Micro’s Kirk Robinson]

Today, Ingram Micro uses many AI models in the Xvantage platform. They’re using all of that and launching the Xvantage mobile app for Android and iOS.

Sanjib Sahoo, EVP and chief digital officer at Irvine, Calif-based distributor Ingram Micro, said at Ingram’s Global Cloud and Innovation Summit in May that partners continuously asked for an Xvantage app as they want to be able to complete orders on the go.

“We did a lot of user research in what the customer wanted to have built in the app,” Sahoo (pictured) told CRN. “It’s what do they want to do in the app and we took their feedback. This is built on top of that.”

Cricket Paulsen, managing director of Marlborough, Mass.-based Complete Technology Resources, is happy to see that the app is available on Android.

“It’s the small things,” she said.

Partners can search products, make and track orders, see their active credits, and track invoices, returns and claims. Like the website, the app also gives recommendations to trending and popular products that are being ordered.

“You get a completely customized dashboard and favorites,” he said. “We are taking the experience to anywhere, anytime. “All the recommendations and machine learning that you see in the Xvantage platform today, like customized widgets, that information will also be on the app. You will have a seamless log in, you can interact with the app as well as your desktop, and they will talk to each other.”

David Frankland, managing partner at Ontario, Canada-based Cloud Managed Networks, said the app will allow his organization to change the way they do business.

“It’s how fast you do business, how you interact with your clients and to get all that information immediately out,” he said.

Ryan Overtoom, partner at Chicago-based Sikich, said the app seems like the next best thing from a business development perspective.

“For team members to be out and have that real-time data is great,” he said.