TD SYNNEX: Charting A Course For The Direction Of Technology

TD SYNNEX CEO Rich Hume and Frank Vitagliano, CEO of GTDC, discussed how to create a business plan during uncertain times at the 2023 The Channel Company Best Of Breed Conference in Atlanta, GA. Frank Vitagliano: You know, Richard, there's been a lot of discussion, obviously, about sort of the macro, you know, economic environment that we find ourselves in. How are you viewing it? Rich Hume: In our lifetimes this will go down as the greatest industry that we had the opportunity to work with. No doubt. And in the longer term, we will continue to have a mid-single digit total I.T, CAGR. But there are going to be as there always have been, shorts and longs within that. So, if you think about a $4.6 trillion market and it growing at 5%, if you were to think about the most recently emerging technologies - hybrid cloud, cybersecurity analytics, IoT, hyperscale infrastructure are now AI - If you remove them from the opportunity, then the opportunity is really flat. One way of thinking about planning your business is plan on the lower side of growth. That way you make sure you get your cost envelope about right and then make a couple of bets, relative to areas that, you know, align well with what your core franchises. And, you know, once the economy reemerges, then you can take that opportunity to, you know, really accelerate, if you will. Frank Vitagliano: TD SYNNEX recently released your second annual Direction of Technology report. Can you talk a little bit about some of that? Rich Hume: Skills and talent, especially in the new technologies, are a major inhibitor, yet a major opportunity if you get it right. Moving forward. In addition to that, participating in the right space is obviously key. Where the market is growing, where it's strong is another big differentiator overall and then utilizing the entirety of the ecosystem. As technology gets more complex as you have the inability, if you will, to be full service from your own spot, being able to make those connections and utilize, you know, the capabilities of the broader ecosystem are key. The newer generations are hugely sensitive to wanting to work with socially responsible companies, and they're very, very focused on environmental and sustainable commitments. The last point that I would make, I think there's no doubt that A I will be a top three opportunity. About 30% of the partners are either active or are in the process of, you know, soon coming to market with some offering. this technology, as we all know, is not simple. There's a lot of complexity. Your customers need a lot of advice. You are, you know they're their trusted advisor. We are vital, vital to those relationships, both in customer as well as, you know, all the way back through our vendors. Frank Vitagliano: TD SYNNEX, how are you helping both the vendor community get products to market and the solution provider community, you know, getting enabled to sell and support those products? Rich Hume: Yeah, that's a great question. Investing in specialized resources, making sure that we're aligning with the emerging strategies which are around the high growth areas that I talked about earlier, having the platform tools, capabilities to be able to make sure that we can service both our vendors and our customers, that the solution providers in a in a fairly expedient and efficient way is important. And then of course, another big part of our strategy is digitizing everything. There's still good play to go around digital transformation and the growth that all of those technologies are going to offer all of us. And then of course, you know, the large and emerging opportunity after that. Frank Vitagliano: I get asked the question all the time, you know, what's my view of the future of distribution? How do you see that? Rich Hume: Well, either they say, evolve or die? Right? Get involved with more sophisticated engagements with, you know, being internal advisors, if you will, with many of you. We have the Practice Builder program, which is sort of the white paper on if you want to get into a new practice as to how you think about going after that and then getting back to the specialized skills and really, I believe having a more informative or a deeper dialog across the ecosystem is critically important. And then of course, helping you to focus on the efficiency of your business is really critical as well. Nobody gives a hoot that we're the largest distributor. None of our customers care. What they care about is what are you doing to help me be successful? And do you offer me better capability than, you know, your competition? For us, it's about, you know, hand to hand engagement every day and trying to help you be successful as you go to market.