TechSelect Members Go National With New Network
“That&'s not a goal, that&'s the expectation. What&'s the downside? You sign up for the platform, you get business from the platform,” said Jeff Leventhal, CEO of New York-based ComputerRepair.com, whose platform Tech Data is using to launch the TechSource professional services network.
Tech Data will not make any money directly from the network, but it hopes the opportunities bring in increased product revenue. Solution providers are charged an $11 fee by ComputerRepair.com for posting an opportunity to the network. The company providing the services is charged a 10 percent fee of the revenue generated by the project, executives said. “It&'s a commission fee.
TECHSELECT NETWORK ADVANTAGES
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>> Leverages ComputerRepair.com&'s platform, which then collaborates with VARs to ensure an accurate and complete scope of the work.
>> TechSelect Network covers 100 percent of U.S. Zip codes and 95 percent of users are solution providers seeking help.
>> Payment handled through debit/credit transactions; longer projects paid on a weekly basis.
>> Work order includes a $3 million liability insurance policy, which protects the VAR.
>> Tech Data is recruiting vendors to post service opportunities.
You know in advance that&'s the fee so it helps you set your own rates,” said Annette Taber, director of TechSelect.
ComputerRepair.com already has a network of more than 11,000 IT technicians that can be leveraged by other solution providers, Leventhal said at the TechSelect Partner Conference in Chandler, Ariz., last week.
Tech Data envisions a TechSource network in which TechSelect members utilize each other to bid on and win opportunities that would normally be beyond their capabilities or outside their geographic area, Taber said.
“The process between now and the next six months is to train them. We will run Webinars every week to get them trained on the system,” she said.
“Web-based services acquisition has potential. If I have extra manpower lying there, it is incremental utilization of my labor force providing incremental revenue,” said Kash Mahna, general manager of Computer Systems and Methods, a Somerville, N.J.-based solution provider. “If I have techs sitting there on a bench, I&'d rather send them out at a lower price. Or I can put them out there at higher rates and see if I can get them [work].”
Mark Sehi, president of Sehi Computer Products, Rochester Hills, Mich., said he plans to use TechSource partners to help install computers at schools during the busy educational buying season.
“We recently passed on a project to put 400 projectors in a school district. We didn&'t have the expertise to install in the fashion they wanted to install. We could have gone to TechSource to find that technician in our geography,” he said.
“During the summer we don&'t have enough technicians. We did one three-week project for 1,200 computers that was a four- to five-hour drive from us. It was costly to have our own people there.”