Ingram Micro aspires to create a thriving, digitally enabled partner ecosystem

As businesses rapidly adopt digital technologies to adapt to changing market dynamics and customer preferences, there's a growing demand for various digital solutions and services. This is indeed crucial for the VAR business as fast-tracking digital transformation would mean a wealth of opportunities for VARs in expanding their business, driving revenue growth, and delivering tangible value to their clients. 

Navneet Singh Bindra, Senior Vice President & Country Chief Executive, Ingram Micro India tells VARINDIA of how the company looks at digitally empowering the channel community and how digital collaboration with partners help them serve end customers better - 

How are you digitally empowering partners and VARs? 
The rapidly evolving tech landscape calls for some immediate actions that we must take to digitally empower our partners and Value-Added Resellers. We have taken multiple steps to empower our partners and VARs across India digitally, and our core focus has always been on education, enablement, collaboration and support to empower partners for the digital revolution.

The first step towards digital empowerment is to create the digital mindset among partners and help them analyze the opportunities in the digital sphere. Then, we focus on digital empowerment, and that’s where our digital ecosystem – Ingram Micro Xvantage – becomes a game changer for our partners. This platform empowers our partners to learn, partner, build, manage, and buy technology-led products, services and solutions digitally. It completely redefines the way partners interact and transact with us. 

Our digital collaboration with partners helps them leverage insights and avail the services, such as Cloud Services, Managed Services, Professional Services, etc. to meet the requirements of end customers effectively. In terms of support, we ensure that our partners’ business grow with us and that’s why we offer them highly flexible Financial Services. Our Financial Services play a significant role in enhancing the technology buying capabilities of our partners without bearing any huge upfront costs. These digital empowerment strategies have helped our partners extensively to excel in the digital age.

How important is the Partner Program for your organization to drive business growth?
We rely on Partner Programs to achieve multiple long-term objectives such as improved business growth, stronger market presence, enhanced sales, or even maintaining a viable track record. We can expand our reach by developing and executing effective partner programs, and it also enables to develop a broader distribution network through diverse sales channels. Our partner programs also help us gain exposure to a wider range of target audience and enhance our brand visibility. All these result into increased sales and improved growth, which is the end objective of any organization. Hence, we are very particular and passionate about envisaging and executing effective partner programs to gain the competitive edge.

What are the key steps you undertake while designing a fair and transparent partnership model? 
We aspire to create a thriving partner ecosystem, and we take multiple necessary steps to build a transparent and fair model focused on sustained growth. We work with the intent of fostering strong and collaborative relationships to ensure mutual benefits and success. So, the first step that we take in this regard is defining clear objectives and expectations from the partnership programs and communicating the same to all stakeholders. 

We also try to define the roles and responsibilities of all the parties beforehand and ensure that these are well-aligned with overall business’ vision. Then, we complement our programs with tiered structures, based on performance, expertise and capabilities of different partners. We draft multiple schemes and incentives to rewards the partners and motivate them further to accomplish mutual goals. Additionally, our transparent policies and approach towards creating a thriving ecosystem are based on fostering open communications and sharing feedback routinely. All these help partners make the necessary adjustments in their approach and strategy as and when required to excel in the competitive age. These strategies have helped us cultivate long-term bonds with our valuable partners and march towards collective success much more competently.