Avnet and IBM Plot Their 2015 Roadmap Towards Mutual Success

March 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Overview of the Avnet-IBM Global Relationship

We caught up with Tony Madden, Senior Vice President, Avnet Technology Solutions who was recently in Singapore to participate in the Avnet-IBM Asia Pacific Kick-Off Meeting. Responsible for ensuring strategic alignment and identifying growth opportunities globally for Avnet and IBM, Tony related how Avnet Technology Solutions president Phil Gallagher instigated Avnet’s focus on supplier relations and how Avnet has since developed their engagement with supplier partners’ network, especially their biggest supplier partner, IBM.

With more than 25 years of partnership spanning 30 countries globally, Avnet has reached USD3 billion in annual sales of IBM technology solutions and services, generating greater than 20 percent growth year-over-year in IBM sales. According to Tony, Avnet and IBM’s success can be attributed to the two companies’ strong business alignment and working closely together to leverage global strengths, scale and scope to create a competitive advantage.

Synergy in the Asia Pacific Region

Alongside Tony Madden at the Avnet-IBM kick off event in Singapore were Andrew Baker, Director, Avnet Alliance Asia Pacific, IBM and Darryl Tucker, Business Unit Executive, Avnet Technology Solutions. During our conversation, Andrew shared that his role is to work closely with Avnet and IBM across the APAC region, manage the brands that Avnet carries for IBM and oversee the joint teams to ensure that IBM provides an improved experience for IBM resellers. Darryl’s role, on the other hand, is to work closely with IBM, through Andrew, to support IBM’s regional strategies and growth initiatives. IBM is the long term committed partner of Avnet and their exclusive relationship is made of dedicated teams who oversee the success of Avnet-IBM relationship both regionally and globally.

Recent Avnet-IBM Kick-off Meeting in Singapore

Having traveled extensively across the globe to jointly sit down and plan with IBM teams, Tony commended the APAC kick-off meeting for being a perfect execution of teamwork between Avnet and IBM. He said the meeting has been a perfect avenue that provided the opportunity for the teams from the different parts of the APAC region to come together and share best practices. Although Tony did acknowledge the fact that some local/regional APAC players are formidable, he said that Avnet’s global scope and scale and synergy with a leading supplier partner like IBM, has given Avnet a unique competitive advantage for the company.

Andrew shared that the Avnet-IBM kick-off session is about building on the existing success between Avnet and IBM across the region and that Avnet is a very strong distributor in IBM’s power business, software and storage. Darryl reinforced the fact that the kick-off event has allowed the regional team to interact and hear from IBM on their future projects and the direction they are heading.

Andrew also added that IBM business partners can benefit from the multi-country relationship with Avnet and leverage on their expertise as a value added distributor for IBM.

Going Forward Strategies

From a global supplier relationship perspective, Tony shared that Avnet and IBM sit together on a very strategic basis plotting mutual growth strategies to grow IBM sales from USD3 billion in FY2010 to USD5 billion by 2015. He shared that Avnet and IBM have put in place initiatives such as OEM agreement, integration and manufacturing for IBM and Avnet towards achieving mutual profitable growth.

On a regional level, Andrew said that they will continue to strive to improve the experience for the partners by making it easier to do business with IBM through Avnet and to drive three big plays for IBM in 2012 which he identified as software, services and storage. To complement, Darryl shared that Avnet will drive the StoragePath initiative which involves a series of events across the region to help train business partners on how to sell IBM storage and talk to CIOs and CFOs about the business opportunities. StoragePath is part of Avnet Technology Solutions’ SolutionsPath strategy, which focuses on providing means for Avnet’s value added resellers to identify technology opportunities and growth markets, enable the partners with knowledge and skills through trainings, and to accelerate solutions-selling.

Please watch the video for more information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD4f9lzU7_o



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EASTWEST Public Relations is a media relations and digital communications agency based in Asia with offices in Singapore, and Beijing, China.