Synnex Launches Its Largest Services Portfolio To Date

The branded On Demand Services program is designed to help solution providers increase recurring revenue, create more loyal customers and increase profitability, said Bob Stegner, senior vice president of marketing for North America.

"This would be our biggest initiative to date for services for VARs," Stegner said. "Kirk and#91;Nesbit, vice president of design and support servicesand#93; has been focused on getting as many services as possible into a portfolio vs. one-off. It took us a little longer than I thought to get it going, but Kirk has been diligent on who we should partner with and why."

The Fremont Calif.-based distributor's On Demand Field Services include installation of peripherals, servers, desktops and network equipment, as well as hardware contract maintenance and hardware recycling services. Synnex has signed relationships with TechForce and ITI to leverage more than 50,000 technicians nationwide to support the services, he said.

"We picked them because of their ability to help us augment the resellers' own services staff. In cases where resellers need to deploy on a North American or worldwide basis, TechForce has the capabilities to install servers, they can test a lot of technologies," Nesbit said. "These are services companies that we stand behind and they've already helped facilitate some significant deals with our resellers."

Synnex also hopes to eventually foster services support between members of its own VARnex reseller community, but the TechForce and ITI teams can help jump-start that initiative, Stegner said.

The On Demand Managed Services include offerings from DS3 Datavaulting, Perimeter eSecurity and itControl Suite, according to Nesbit. DS3 provides remote data backup and disaster-recovery services, while Perimeter offers more than 50 managed security services ranging from intrusion detection and prevention to hosted antivirus and antispam. Finally, solution providers can purchase itControl Suite's network management solution through the On Demand initiative. In addition, VARs can purchase help-desk and other legacy technical support services through Synnex's Concentrix subsidiary.

"Perimeter is a very significant player in the managed security space. They provide someone even and#91;if the VAR isand#93; already in conventional managed services but not doing anything in the managed security space," Nesbit said. "itControl Suite is a managed network and infrastructure vendor with a lot of very unique technology traits. Their managed services technology can shut down workstations between 7:30 pm. and 7:30 a.m. and can calculate savings based on local power rates."

DS3 has a very robust offering with NOCs in ATandT data centers, Nesbit said. "They have Exchange backup with message-level restore capabilities. There's a real synergy between all three that it's doable to make money from day one," he said.

The On Demand Edge Services include VoIP and remote PBX solutions from Packet 8, as well as Synnex's PrintSolv print-management solution and remote digital signage capabilities, according to the distributor. Edge Services are offered on a monthly basis where end users only pay for what they use, Stegner said.

"That's the key. The challenges in other partnerships are that you still have to make up-front investments, get an infrastructure in place," Stegner said. "Kirk developed the ability for VARs to get into services with little or no capital expenditure. They only need to utilize what they need."

Finally, Synnex's On Demand Professional Services includes a team dedicated to delivering proof-of-concept field tests, capacity planning and assessment studies on behalf of VARs.

"These are all Synnex engineers, all focused on presales assessment activities, most notably server consolidation assessment," Nesbit said.

Solution providers can pick and choose the services they wish to procure and Synnex will continue to look for more vendors and more offerings in the future, Nesbit said.

"We wanted to build a portfolio that was pretty comprehensive but leave the door open for other pieces," he said.