D&H is introducing “everything-as-a-service” (XaaS) solution bundles designed to help channel pros new to high-growth markets build practices in those fields more easily.
The new initiative, which offers pre-assembled collections of hardware, cloud software, and professional services at monthly subscription rates, arrives at the end of a year marked by double- and even triple-digit growth for the distributor in strategic areas like cloud computing, pro AV, and esports.
Aimed at helping channel pros satisfy rising demand among SMBs for as-a-service solutions that turn technology investments into operating expenses rather than capital outlays, the new XaaS bundles let partners accelerate cash flow as well by collecting payment for the entire value of a multiyear contract in advance.
The four initial bundles cover collaboration, unified communications, storage, and endpoint upgrades. The collaboration SKU, which is structured similarly to the others, includes a mini-PC, a PC mount with cable retention, a Logitech ConferenceCam, and a Logitech Tap touch controller, plus integrated Microsoft Teams software. Partners can add their own professional services to the package or leverage D&H’s services organization.
“That’s really what they’re looking for, a combination of a hardware appliance, a cloud solution, and a physical service attached together for one payment per month,” says Peter DiMarco, D&H’s vice president of VAR sales.†
The new offerings build upon D&H’s previously introduced device-as-a-service program, which lets end users pay for hardware products via recurring fees. They’re also representative of a larger effort by the distributor to make getting in on exploding adoption of cloud, pro AV, and other solutions simpler for channel pros with limited experience in those areas.
“That is what we would call our secret sauce,” DiMarco says, pointing to D&H’s assessment, migration, and management services for Microsoft Azure and SMB-ready infrastructure stacks from Hewlett Packard Enterprise as examples. “We’ve partnered with our vendor providers on putting together pre-built solutions that are ready to go for the VAR as they close a sale or as they upgrade or refresh an environment.”
Offerings like those played a key role in the 20% spike in SMB sales D&H recorded this year, according to DiMarco. Growth was even stronger in segments the company has singled out for strategic attention. Cloud revenues, for example, soared by triple digits in 2019 for the second year in a row. DiMarco credits moves like hiring Ingram Micro veteran Jason Bystrak to lead a new cloud business unit and rolling out an all-new cloud marketplace, among others, for those results.
“We were able to sort of bear the fruits of all those investments that really began this time last year,” he says.
Similar investments D&H has been making in pro AV since last August contributed to the company’s “strong double-digit growth” in that market, according to DiMarco, who adds that huddle room solutions featuring technologies from Poly, Logitech, and Cisco, among others, have been selling especially well. “Some of those solutions are actually up 50% year over year for us,” he says, in part because newcomers to markets like digital signage, video walls, and collaboration can get design and installation assistance from D&H’s team of solution architects and service professionals.
Partners building esports practices can also get services help from D&H, along with reference architectures and bundled solutions combining mobile devices, high-performance gaming systems, headsets, and more. Though still an emerging opportunity, esports was another top growth engine for D&H this year. According to DiMarco, the company will give partners expanded access to esports experts capable of helping high schools and colleges create teams and leagues in 2020.†
“The opportunity isn’t only about the technical solution,” he says. “It’s about how to counsel the end users on building these sports programs.”
Rising interest in esports, along with cloud and pro AV solutions, has driven increased sales in more traditional product categories for D&H and its partners too. “The growth in some of these new and emerging areas has lifted our core solution practices like networking and compute,” DiMarco says, noting that esports and conference room solutions require servers, switches, routers, firewalls, and other supporting infrastructure systems.
Other plans for 2020 at D&H include consolidating all of its solution architects, who currently sit within specialized programs and product groups across the company, into a single team with end-to-end expertise in networking, cloud, pro AV, and beyond. “So many of these [technologies] are interrelated today or interwoven today, you really do need an organization that can address all of it,” DiMarco says.
Partners can expect to receive more education and enablement offerings next year as well. The brand new 50-acre headquarters complex D&H occupied in October includes a training theater and multimedia production studio that the company will use to deliver increased sales, product, and market strategy instruction. “They’ve all said that they can’t get enough content,” says DiMarco of D&H resellers.
To ensure credit limits don’t impede its current momentum in strategic markets, D&H dispersed $21.5 million in supplemental credit to a hand-picked set of nearly 600 partners last month.
