In the latest expansion of its ongoing, strategic foray into the burgeoning Internet of Things opportunity, Tech Data has introduced an Analytics and IoT Solution Catalog and a new enablement program designed to help 200 partners bring an IoT solution to market swiftly.
The 30 pre-vetted, market-ready SKUs in the catalog cover use cases in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, transportation and logistics, and smart cities, among other vertical industries. All of those systems draw on Tech Data’s Solution Factory methodology, which is designed to help partners get proven, repeatable solutions to market far faster than would be possible working alone. Tech Data unveiled the Solution Factory in May.
Co-sponsored by Intel and Microsoft, the enablement program utilizes Tech Data’s Practice Builder methodology. Introduced in 2017, Practice Builder is ordinarily a high-touch, multi-month process aimed at helping partners build complete service practices. The new program for analytics and IoT partners seeks to help more channel pros benefit from Practice Builder by arming them to bring a single, revenue producing IoT solution to market within 90 days instead. The 200 companies invited to participate in the program are based in North America and Europe.
“We are excited to sponsor this program with Tech Data, with the goal of championing analytics and IoT solution-selling into the marketplace,” said Rod O’Shea, global partner director for IoT at Intel, in a press statement. “We believe that Tech Data’s Practice Builder program and workshops will put resellers and system integrators in a better position to build profitable and sustainable analytics and IoT practices.”
The enablement program’s business strategy workshops are supported by Lemon Operations, a business transformation firm that specializes in helping IT channel partners grow new revenue streams in emerging technology segments.
“Tech Data’s new Solution Catalog and series of workshops are empowering partners by providing the knowledge, tools and resources they need to help customers identify and deploy repeatable IoT and analytics solutions,” said Nicole Denil, general manager of IoT sales at Microsoft, in prepared remarks. “Partners who take advantage of these vetted solutions and in-depth training will be better able to help customers drive business transformation and expedite time to value.”
The catalog and enablement program both focus on vertical solutions to ensure that partners entering the IoT market address their clients’ demands for multi-vendor solutions that provide measurable business value. Use cases addressed include telehealth, manufacturing operations, omnichannel retail, fleet tracking, and public safety.
“Some of the main challenges in executing analytics and IoT solutions are that they are both often highly customized to solve a specific customer business problem and are complex in nature. The ability to scale is very important in realizing revenue from these solutions,” said Patrick Zammit, Tech Data’s president of global analytics and IoT solutions for Europe, in a press release. “With Tech Data’s Solution Catalog and our series of strategy development workshops, we are facilitating repeatable solutions and outcomes for partners to help them quickly enter the analytics and IoT market and generate repeatable sales as they become their clients’ go-to resource for state-of-the-art, industry-specific solutions.”
Analytics and IoT is one of four next-generation IT markets Tech Data has bet its future on. Cloud computing, security, and endpoint solutions are the others.
Analyst IDC expects worldwide IoT spending to total $745 billion this year and exceed $1 trillion in 2022.
