Ingram Adds New Divisions for High-End Technology and Computing Solutions

Ingram Micro Inc. said that it has initiated two new divisions to provide resources and assistance to channel partners selling high-end technology and computing solutions to business customers.

The distributor’s new operations, called Advanced Technology and Advanced Computing, are intended to help channel partners recognize and pursue sales opportunities in segments such as unified communications, virtualization, data center infrastructure, network security and storage, official said.

The Advanced Technology unit will be led by Ken Bast, Ingram vice president and general manager, while the Advanced Computing group will be headed by Scott Zahl, Ingram vice president and general manager.

“The addition of these two overarching technology divisions allows Ingram Micro to provide the specialization, high customer touch and dedicated resources necessary to further advance our channel partners into midmarket opportunities and help them capture more profitable growth,” said Keith Bradley, Ingram senior executive vice president and president.

Ingram officials said that the Advanced Technology division supports the development of high-profile and emerging networking and security solutions as well as unified communications solutions. The Advanced Computing division focuses on the growth of advanced computing and infrastructure technology solutions including enterprise software, storage and virtualization.

Both divisions will have access to Ingram’s resources in credit, customer service, licensing, marketing, purchasing, IT professional services and technical support, the distributor said.

Ingram also said that it is arming dedicated teams to navigate the complexities of IT vendors’ order management processes and help channel partners to better engage with suppliers.

The support teams will concentrate on vendor solutions, help to simplify the entire quote-to-order entry process and track orders from select IT vendor partners, officials said.

“These new specialists and incremental resources were added to ease the process around more complex quoting, as well as the order management required for procuring advanced technologies and computing solutions,” said Paul Bay, Ingram executive vice president.

“The new resources will enhance the overall customer experience and make our vendor management and sales organization even more efficient,” Bay said.

An industry analyst praised Ingram’s new divisions for their ability to help vendors and channel partners work together.

“Ingram Micro’s new divisions blur the lines between value and volume and address the advanced technologies and multi-vendor solutions that are moving the market forward,” said Chris Ilg, International Data Corp. research director, infrastructure channels and alliances.

“By aligning the company’s resources to better service the needs of both the vendor and VAR community, Ingram Micro is evolving its service delivery model to better align with the future of IT computing,” Ilg said.