Synnex CEO: Future Growth Opportunity Lies Beyond Hardware

Addressing a gathering of his company’s channel partners Monday morning, Synnex Chairman and CEO Kevin Murai urged them to focus on what he calls the ’third platform,’ a mix of cloud, mobility, big data and analytics solutions and services.

’In the future,’ Murai told about 500 attendees at his company’s spring Varnex event in Dallas, ’growth opportunity is going to be coming from the third platform.’

While the second platform, technology hardware, will still be around and should not be ignored, Murai said that according to analyst firm IDC, most, if not all, of the growth during the next four years will be in areas that make up the third platform.

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"Do not ignore the second platform,’ the head of the technology distributor and services provider warned. ’It is still where the vast majority of the technology is sold, and partners need to continue to do a good job there.

"But, in the future, growth opportunity is going to be coming from the third platform" he said.

Dean Edourarde, a vice president at Apex Data Corp., a cloud-focused Synnex partner in Los Angeles, said he’s already on board with that new platform, and is expecting significant growth in the coming year with analytics and big data.

"I just looked at (our) quota for 2017 gross and it is literally triple in that area," he said, "It will be a big focus for me and the rest of my team."

However, for partners like Craig Sehi, a vice president at Sehi Computer Products in Rochester Hills, Mich., who works in large part in the K-12 education space, it can be difficult to start moving toward the third platform.

"It is a big struggle for us to get into that space," he said, "and that is where Synnex comes in, with partnerships that help."

’In the education space, cloud, infrastructure and storage are huge … there is a whole bunch of opportunity around that,’ he said. Murai said Fremont, Calif.-based Synnex is moving to help its partners capture that business with solutions from its Solv methodologies in cybersecurity, cloud, and mobility, all of which make up a large part of third-platform opportunities.

With Synnex's Solv solutions, Synnex specialists help partners create and customize hardware, software services and support solutions to meet client demands in their markets.

Murai also took time to discuss the importance of cybersecurity, noting that it’s one of technology’s highest growth areas and that partners should be keenly focused on how to keep the information they possess secure.

"You possess significant confidential information," Murai said, "and you can’t let that information get out."

Murai also briefly discussed that Synnex is moving toward an Internet of Things focus that will be "narrow and deep," with attention on solutions in building controls and public-sector surveillance.

"We can’t be everything to everyone," he said, adding that the company will instead focus on specific areas and do well in them.

"We are only valuable to you if we help you grow," Murai said.

"And the more we can work together to explore new opportunities, the more you can help us direct our investment and capability and where we are going in our go-to-market" strategy.

This week's conference is being held just two weeks after Synnex announced it would lay off at least 868 customer care workers -- roughly 1 percent of the company's 70,000 employees -- while closing three of its U.S. delivery centers and offshoring the work to lower-cost locations.

Synnex saw revenue fall year over year for the fourth consecutive quarter, recording a quarterly decline of 2.4 percent, to $3.13 billion, the company reported last month.