SYNNEX Sees Busy Year Ahead for SMB Partners

John Phillips (pictured) still remembers what business looked like a year ago when lockdown orders spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and a historic recession slowed technology purchasing. It’s not a pleasant memory. 

“It wasn’t a huge dip,” recalls Phillips, vice president of SMB sales at SYNNEX, “but at the time it felt like, ‘oh man, what’s going on here? Is the rest of the year going to be like this?’”

It wasn’t. In fact, Phillips’s team processed a record number of orders for a record number of partners in 2020. “We had a great top line last year,” he says. “It was very strong growth, and a really nice bottom line as well.”

Business remains strong too, he adds, for SYNNEX and its SMB partners. “They’re busy, and so very optimistic,” Phillips says. “I think it’s going to be busy through the end of the year.”

The specific opportunities fueling that activity were among a range of topics discussed during the spring 2021 meeting of SYNNEX’s Varnex partner community, which was held online today and yesterday. Others included the ongoing transformation of Varnex into a solution selling organization and a certain blockbuster merger you may have heard about. Here’s a review of the most illuminating highlights of this week’s show.