TD Synnex’s Sammy Kinlaw: CommunitySolv Unites TechSelect, Varnex And Stellr

‘We’ve come together in one integrated community. And it’s really proving to be the biggest single differentiating factor that TD Synnex has above all other distributors in the business: our scale and breadth in services and our scale and breadth in financials,’ says Sammy Kinlaw, TD Synnex’s senior vice president of sales communities for North America.

Bringing TD Synnex’s Communities Closer

The merger last year of Tech Data and Synnex into TD Synnex not only brought two distributors together to create the world’s largest IT distributor, it also brought Tech Data’s TechSelect and Synnex’s Varnex and Stellr communities together under a single organization called CommunitySolv.

While the three communities remain independent, CommunitySolv, under the direction of Sammy Kinlaw, TD Synnex’s senior vice president of sales communities for North America, is making it easier for partners to find benefits by working with two or more of them.

That was evident at last month’s TechSelect conference where solution providers from Varnex came together with the TechSelect community for the first time, Kinlaw told CRN. And, he said, he’s seeing interest in Varnex from TechSelect partners.

“TechSelect was mostly advanced technology, Varnex was mostly endpoint, and that still holds true,” he said. “But if you are a Varnex member and you have ideas about growing your advanced business, TechSelect does have more advanced solutions and trainings. So we are seeing some migration. … I am seeing partners who are joining both communities. I did not expect that.”

That move to embrace multiple communities under TD Synnex could expand this fall when TD Synnex holds its first CommunitySolv conference, which Kinlaw said will bring TechSelect, Varnex and Stellr community members together for the first time under one roof while introducing a completely new version of the Stellr community with a big focus on the needs of MSPs.

“It‘s a community based on next-gen offerings,” he said. “It’ll have security included. There will be cloud. There‘ll be data analytics, IoT, mobility, anything that’s based on a monthly recurring revenue stream that an MSP would be interested in.”

Partner communities, which have become a staple of distribution, bring together channel partners who pay to be members and enjoy shared benefits that typically include things like enhanced vendor support, discounted shipping, and opportunities to partner with peers across geographies or areas of technical expertise.

Here is a look at some of the changes that have happened to partner communities since TD Synnex was formed and how they are impacting solution providers.

What happened at this year’s TechSelect?

It was the first TechSelect face-to-face meeting we‘ve had in two and a half years, so people have not been together for a while. A noticeable difference for me at this event was the engagement level with vendors, with partners, with the TD Synnex employees. You and I, we’ve all been to lots of conferences, and you‘ve got people doing this or that and running here and there. And I think that’s the biggest differentiator from what we had [during the pandemic], from the fatigue that was in the industry, to what you have today.

And I think the level of questioning has risen. Partners are asking smarter questions, it feels like to me, and they‘re looking for ways to empower themselves in different ways, either from a technology standpoint, from a services standpoint, or even from a financial creativity standpoint. I mean, they’re just asking really, really good questions.

Can you give an example of what you mean by that?

Partners are interested in learning about technology. And two of the most engaged breakouts that I observed was our services breakout and our financial breakout.

The services business for us through communities is growing exponentially larger and faster than the rest of the TD Synnex business. And so the question becomes, why are we growing faster? Well, it‘s because these partners are paying to be in a club. They’re paying for membership. They‘re paying to learn. And so they’re really willing to take advantage of ways to empower and enable themselves in different ways. And I mean that with all sincerity. From a services outsource opportunity, partners know that services drive profit. And secondly, partners also realize that they‘re struggling with manpower, with staffing. And so because of those struggles with manpower and staffing, they look to TD Synnex to augment their own areas. So whether it’s something like cloud migration or desktop services, TD Synnex has brought services to a new front that we‘ve never had before because we can white-label on behalf of these partners for any of those services. So partners don’t have the expenses within their P&L from folks they have to keep on their books. They can have any number of services from quantity of one to a 1,000-unit Chrome rollout, and we can install on their behalf. Any type of cloud offering or migration that they need, we can handle. ... This is where TD Synnex is broadening the horizons in such a big way because we‘re offering services solutions and financial solutions to partners that didn’t even realize we had these offerings.

What about the financial services side?

Our use of financial creativity is exponentially larger within communities. And that‘s because we have a dedicated way in which to disseminate information to partners that really want to listen. For example, we can underwrite deals on their behalf. And that underwriting has been around for a very long time. We are super happy to facilitate underwriting for partners, and that means lockbox scenarios where we can bill on their behalf. We can collect on their behalf. We do all of that work on the back end. And the end user would never have any idea that TD Synnex was even involved.

And so the same benefits that I told you with services apply to financial services. If we do that for these partners, they don‘t have the expenses on their books. They don’t have to have dedicated people doing that. It changes the dynamics for them, and they can free themselves up to sell technology and not be bookkeepers.

Synnex had its own offering where they did that. Tech Data had its own offering. We‘ve come together in one integrated community. And it’s really proving to be the biggest single differentiating factor that TD Synnex has above all other distributors in the business: our scale and breadth in services and our scale and breadth in financials.

What’s next with the communities?

[November will see] our first attempt to offer a conference with CommunitySolv as the umbrella. So Varnex members will be invited. TechSelect members will be invited. And I am telling you first that the Stellr community, which is a community built around what previously was Synnex’s cloud platform, is being reimagined, reannounced and rebranded. That‘ll be out in the summer timeframe. It’s a community based on next-gen offerings. It‘ll have security included. There will be cloud. There’ll be data analytics, IoT, mobility, anything that‘s based on a monthly recurring revenue stream that an MSP would be interested in.

Is that going to be a new community or an expansion of an existing community?

It will be a reimagined Stellr community. So Stellr 2.0, with a new name, TBD.

You mentioned 'CommunitySolv.' The 'Solvs' are not communities per se, but a series of offerings, right?

Solvs are available to all partners of TD Synnex. But with my communities, I have a much more dedicated way to train and disseminate information to the partners within the community. So they get favors. And we‘re not shy about saying that they get favors if they’re in the community. So going back to your original question, yes, the November conference will include all of our communities. There‘ll be separate breakouts for Varnex and TechSelect. We are expecting roughly 1,000 people at the conference, so it will be large. We’ll have keynotes from [TD Synnex CEO] Rich Hume. He‘s already confirmed. And we’ll have some industry heavy hitters from the vendors that will be disclosed at a later date.

Are you seeing any former Synnex solution providers coming into the TechSelect community?

Yes. I did not expect that. Think of a Venn diagram where you have TechSelect, Varnex and Stellr communities. And if you looked at who was in those communities, the intersection within those circles was pretty minimal. That was part of the reason why I left the communities disparate and different because they were separate entities. They were different revenue streams. TechSelect was mostly advanced technology, Varnex was mostly endpoint, and that still holds true. But if you are a Varnex member and you have ideas about growing your advanced business, TechSelect does have more advanced solutions and trainings. So we are seeing some migration. It‘s not a student body left or student body right. I am seeing partners who are joining both communities. I did not expect that. And that’s OK. That‘s good. That shows me there’s benefits to being in both.

We‘re growing. I’ve added more new members in the past four months than had been added to TechSelect and Varnex in the past two years combined.

And when you say you're adding more members, you're talking specifically about TechSelect?

I‘d say Varnex is growing a little faster than TechSelect is at the moment. But that’s a product of endpoint. And endpoint scales quickly and grows quickly. And there‘s more partners, frankly. So we’re growing our membership incredibly fast. And we‘re growing it smartly. We’re not adding partners for the sake of growth. The partners who are coming into the mix are vetted. We know that they‘re looking for solutions and that they’re going to be engaged. I had 22 new and prospective members at TechSelect. That‘s never happened before.

Does that mean TechSelect is expanding by 22 new members, or are they replacing members who left the community?

I don‘t have any attrition. Zero. This is all partners who are joining TechSelect based off the benefits, both tangible and intangible. I’ve told you this before, and I‘ll tell you again, there are tangible benefits partners get. They have shipping discounts. They get extended terms and conditions. They get deeper credit lines. You can easily tie the cost of membership into the benefit statement. It more than pays for itself quickly.

If you look at pre-merger and post-merger TechSelect, what are some differences in the community and the benefits are that the members receive?

From a tangible perspective, credit line extensions, any terms, the amount of credit, and discounts on shipping, all those are expanded.

How about the intangible benefits?

The intangible benefits are the number of services that are offered. There are additional financial offers, as we discussed. We have additional service offers that are offered to these partners on top of the fact that [legacy] Synnex had a very wide Solv offering. There was PrintSolv [managed print services], DemandSolv [marketing services], GovSolv [state and local government and education services]. That was a wider breadth of offers than what Tech Data had in the Solv frame of reference. So you add all those things together, that‘s a pretty wide arsenal of additional things we can give partners to hunt with. And the intention is for them to widen their offerings and frankly appear bigger than they are with TD Synnex as their ‘hidden muscle.’

How is vendor participation in the TD Synnex communities changing?

Our vendor investments continue to scale. If you look at where we stand in terms of the number of vendors that sponsor Tech Select and Varnex, right now I‘m up almost 55 percent year over year in vendor investment in dollars. We’re up roughly 40 percent in the number of vendors that support the communities. Why would that be? Well, vendors have taken note that we’re growing, that the partners within the communities grow at a rate and pace faster than the average and faster than market. They know that it‘s an audience that wants to learn solutions, and every vendor wants to be part of a solution. And part of the good luck is timing because, post-pandemic, people want to learn and vendors want to invest. I happen to have communities that are growing faster than the market, and vendors are taking advantage of that. Of course, we want our membership to grow. So the more vendors I have, the more benefits I can give members because there’s more investment.

Also, as we expand communities, one of the ideas I have is that partners oftentimes are presented with global opportunities. I don‘t know if you’ve been in the export business, or if you‘ve dealt with Europe. I have. Exporting things is not easy, and it’s costly. And if you want to have a startup in Europe, that‘s not easy either. We have a new global outreach team where we will facilitate global business to end users on behalf of our partners. And so if somebody needs to do business in the United Kingdom, we can help with that. If somebody needs to do business in Australia, and let’s say a partner has an end user that has a branch in Melbourne, we can help with that. So our global outreach services is growing very quickly. And part of the benefits of being within the community is you‘ve got access to those global team members. And that’s new.