February 3, 2010
By

D.H. Kass

: More stories by this author:

Avnet Technology Solutions said it will provide its channel partners in North America a folder of professional and managed services, housed in its SolutionsPath program, aimed at helping them expand their collection of data center offerings.

The distributor’s professional and managed services lineup, called SolutionsPath Services, includes assessment, design, implementation and managed services, delivered and project managed through Avnet.

Avnet said that its services portfolio was developed to complement practices already existing under the SolutionsPath banner, namely networking, security, storage, virtualization, government and health care.

In January, the distributor added networking to its SolutionsPath roster, providing tools, training and services to help its channel partners cultivate data center sales opportunities.

“Our partners are experts in developing solutions for the traditional data center, however, this model is undergoing a significant shift and customers’ needs are changing rapidly,” said Tony Vottima, Avnet vice president, solutions marketing and development.

Vottima said that the distributor’s array of professional and managed services will help channel partners to construct comprehensive data center solutions, and, correspondingly, boost sales and profit margins.

“To be successful long term, partners will need to know how to architect data center solutions for an increasingly converged environment,” he said.

“With SolutionsPath Services, our partners can begin immediately offering these capabilities to their customers, while also benefitting from the revenue growth and high margin potential that services provide.”

Wide range of services available

Avnet said it will provide a range of solution-specific assessment services around its networking, security, storage and virtualization technology areas. Its design services are intended to supplement those already provided by channel partners to customers, helping them to define the solution, provide a return-on-investment and total-cost-of-ownership analysis, and detail product specifications for procurement.

The distributor’s implementation services are intended to help integrate the solution into the customer’s environment. Managed services encompass both hardware and software solutions.

Micro Solutions, an Avnet channel partner, said the distributor’s service portfolio saves it the cost of developing its own.

“Services are a key component of a complete solutions offering for our customers, but developing new services in-house requires considerable investment,” said Bill Richardson, Micro Solutions vice president of sales.

“With SolutionsPath Services, we can ramp up projects more quickly by using standard services offerings from Avnet,” he said.

TAGS: data center, distributor, Avnet, managed services, channel partner

ITChannelPlanet Archives | Contact D.H. Kass | Back to top

Case Studies   |  Vendor Programs

Channel Insight