Building a rocket takes specialized expertise. Keeping the people who design it connected, productive and equipped with well-managed technology is work many MSPs already know.
That distinction is at the heart of TD SYNNEX’s push to help channel partners enter the space industry. Behind the launches and satellite deployments are businesses with networks, engineering workstations, servers and storage. According to the distributor, some of those companies could use help managing the technology that supports their missions.
Eddie Franklin, TD SYNNEX senior vice president of vertical markets and leader of its Space Tech Initiative, put it more colorfully during an interview with ChannelPro’s Joel Zaidspiner at the company’s Inspire event in Greenville, South Carolina. “The bad news is the rocket scientists built the network because that’s not what they do. That’s what the channel does.”
Franklin and Gary Palenbaum, executive vice president of revenue and customer success, described an opportunity for MSPs and other solution providers to bring familiar capabilities into a market that many have considered outside their reach.
A commercial market opens the door
For partners accustomed to serving manufacturers, professional services firms or other commercial customers, space can sound like a business reserved for large federal contractors, Palenbaum admitted.
Gary Palenbaum
Historically, the industry has been heavily government-driven with much of the reseller participation coming through federal systems integrators. Greater commercialization is broadening the potential customer base.
“Now, as it becomes more commercialized, you’re going to have a huge opportunity for traditional IT resellers to participate,” Palenbaum said.
Franklin described a shift in the government’s role, from helping develop customized solutions with major contractors toward purchasing commercial space services. That creates room for a larger ecosystem of commercial companies and the businesses that support them, he said.
The relevant prospect for an MSP could be a company designing or manufacturing space technology. Its engineering work may be highly specialized, but the business still needs dependable IT operations.
TD SYNNEX’s Space Tech Initiative, announced in October, is intended to help partners develop the knowledge and relationships to pursue those customers. The program includes specialized training through Nova Space Inc., along with industry partnerships and market intelligence.
Familiar services for an unfamiliar industry
There’s a gap between the pace of innovation at some space companies and the maturity of their internal IT processes, Franklin said. Businesses concentrating on their space missions may have assembled their technology environments without the purchasing discipline or device management practices found in larger enterprises.
Eddie Franklin
Engineering workstations, desktops, peripherals and large-format displays all must be acquired and managed. As those environments grow, an improvised approach can become a distraction for employees whose primary job is designing space technology. That creates a practical starting point for an MSP: assess what’s already there.
Franklin suggested evaluating existing infrastructure, identifying inefficiencies and looking for ways to reduce costs. Procurement deserves attention, too. A provider’s manufacturer relationships and knowledge of pricing programs could help a customer acquire equipment more efficiently.
That matters particularly for businesses operating with investment capital, he said. Money spent inefficiently on commercial IT is money that could otherwise support their mission. The service opportunities also extend across technologies already familiar to many channel partners.
“They need great wireless and desktop management,” Franklin said. “They need to understand how to be more efficient using server and storage infrastructure.”
Security, AI and cloud practices also play a role in the space market, Palenbaum added. Partners may need additional expertise in those areas, and TD SYNNEX can help support that development, he said.
The opportunity is to connect those capabilities to a space company’s actual requirements. An infrastructure assessment gives a provider a way to understand the environment, establish where it can help and begin a business conversation around efficiency.
Find the companies, then learn the business
Knowing which services might translate is just one part of entering a vertical. Finding prospective customers and understanding their work is another.
TD SYNNEX is mapping concentrations of space technology manufacturing, Franklin said. He identified Southern California, Florida and Colorado Springs, Colorado, among the areas partners should examine, along with activity around spaceports. Those regions can support more than rocket launches. Testing, manufacturing and other innovation can attract businesses that need IT services, he explained.
MSPs should investigate the space industry activity in a provider’s own region, he advised. Learn enough about those organizations to have an informed conversation. Familiarity with their missions helps a partner explain how its existing expertise could support the business, he said.
Training is part of that preparation. Palenbaum pointed to TD SYNNEX’s collaboration with Nova Space as a way to help partners develop industry knowledge. Inspire participants received access to training, with the broader goal of giving interested partners a practical route into the market, he noted.
Even when the proposed service is familiar, a provider still needs to understand the customer’s priorities and how its technology supports the work. Partners can build that industry knowledge while drawing on capabilities they already have.
“We’re not advocating that the channel needs to reinvent the skill set,” Franklin said. “We’re saying they need to familiarize themselves with space through our Nova space training that we’ve created, and then be able to go out and talk to the space tech industry about the missions they’re trying to accomplish and then plug in their IT skills they have today.”
Joel Zaidspiner is vice president and associate publisher of The ChannelPro Network.
Images: stock.adobe.com — Phushutter, LinkedIn
