Ingram Micro EMEA, a division of Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM), the largest global wholesale provider of technology products and the leading global cloud services aggregator, is today launching the second year of this pan-European channel initiative. Working in close collaboration with IT industry leaders including HP, Microsoft, Cisco, Symantec, CA Technologies, Ipanema, APC, and SNIA Europe, Ingram Micro EMEA has seen overwhelming response from its reseller partner community who are actively transforming their business models to capture the opportunities with Cloud Computing and Managed Services. Branded CTA 2.Go, the Alliance is broadening its scope to a more solutions-oriented focus, a "Cloudaborative" technology focus from the datacenter to the device including virtualization, mobility, and Unified Communications.
"We have moved from the 'What is Cloud Computing?' and 'Where is my data?' questions so often asked in previous years, to questions such as "How can I incorporate Cloud into a larger technology solutions?' and 'When is Cloud most practical according to my end-customer's needs, budget, and location", explains Alain Maquet, Senior Executive Vice President and President Ingram Micro EMEA, "The winds of time have changed. Fear and uncertainty in the channel have transformed into optimism and opportunity. Adoption rates are skyrocketing for Cloud Services vendors within the Ingram Micro Cloud portfolio."
Last year the Channel Transformation Alliance was launched with some simple and practical goals. The Alliance set out to help resellers assess, quantify, and respond to both the threats and the opportunities arising from the emergence of IT-as-a-Service models. A goal was to take away the fear and uncertainly many felt about the Cloud. A further goal of the initiative was to help resellers understand the business model options that were available to them with Cloud Computing, broadly characterized as Cloud Services Broker or Cloud Service Provider models
"There is no doubt based on our experiences within the Channel Transformation Alliance initiative that the EMEA reseller channel has made significant progress in the past twelve months in terms of understanding of the Cloud, understanding of various new business models affiliated with IT-as-a-Services, and their ability to respond to end-users questions and business needs relative to Cloud Computing and Managed Services," confirms Jason Beal, Senior Director for Advanced Solutions and Cloud Services, Ingram Micro EMEA. "Most importantly, we have hard data now demonstrating the increased and rapidly accelerating Cloud market adoption rates and utilization of Cloud Services in EMEA by resellers and end-users."
In the first year of the Channel Transformation Alliance, this multi-vendor educational initiative has exceeded its members' initial milestones, including delivering field-based training to over two thousand resellers. Additionally, over 10.000 unique visitors from within the IT channel have connected to the Channel Transformation Alliance's multi-language website to read educational content, download practical business tools, and watch training videos. Member companies in the Channel Transformation Alliance have met face-to-face in various European cities and participated in workshop sessions to develop program content, align on educational messaging, and respond to reseller feedback.
"The Channel Transformation Alliance is focused on transitioning the reseller business model and providing guidance to the channel on the pragmatic steps to achieve that within a reseller business. The leaders within this Alliance are showing us that they understand the issues that our business is facing," noted Zaki Farooq, CEO of IT reseller Computrad Europe LTD-UK, "Channel Transformation Alliance is giving us not only a step by step approach that we need to build the managed services business, but also gives us invaluable advice, tools and practical steps on how to get started to make a successful business transformation"
As a result of enhancements launched on 1st October, the website www.channeltransformation.com will include both a 'Beginner' track and an 'Advanced' track in order to address resellers in the channel who are at different stages of adoption and business model maturity for Cloud Computing and the technologies mentioned earlier. Over 1000 resellers have actively used this website and our members' partner portals to apply the step by step business transformation the Alliance is evangelizing. For them, broadening the technology scope is a logical next phase to help them build a healthy solutions portfolio containing not only cloud solutions but also other advanced and emerging end-to-end solutions. Understanding those new technologies will help the reseller to create own in-house solutions and to identify cross-sell opportunities ultimately helping them to become a successful Cloud Services Broker and Cloud Services Provider.
Visit eu.ingrammicro.com or www.ingrammicro.com.
"We have moved from the 'What is Cloud Computing?' and 'Where is my data?' questions so often asked in previous years, to questions such as "How can I incorporate Cloud into a larger technology solutions?' and 'When is Cloud most practical according to my end-customer's needs, budget, and location", explains Alain Maquet, Senior Executive Vice President and President Ingram Micro EMEA, "The winds of time have changed. Fear and uncertainty in the channel have transformed into optimism and opportunity. Adoption rates are skyrocketing for Cloud Services vendors within the Ingram Micro Cloud portfolio."
Last year the Channel Transformation Alliance was launched with some simple and practical goals. The Alliance set out to help resellers assess, quantify, and respond to both the threats and the opportunities arising from the emergence of IT-as-a-Service models. A goal was to take away the fear and uncertainly many felt about the Cloud. A further goal of the initiative was to help resellers understand the business model options that were available to them with Cloud Computing, broadly characterized as Cloud Services Broker or Cloud Service Provider models
"There is no doubt based on our experiences within the Channel Transformation Alliance initiative that the EMEA reseller channel has made significant progress in the past twelve months in terms of understanding of the Cloud, understanding of various new business models affiliated with IT-as-a-Services, and their ability to respond to end-users questions and business needs relative to Cloud Computing and Managed Services," confirms Jason Beal, Senior Director for Advanced Solutions and Cloud Services, Ingram Micro EMEA. "Most importantly, we have hard data now demonstrating the increased and rapidly accelerating Cloud market adoption rates and utilization of Cloud Services in EMEA by resellers and end-users."
In the first year of the Channel Transformation Alliance, this multi-vendor educational initiative has exceeded its members' initial milestones, including delivering field-based training to over two thousand resellers. Additionally, over 10.000 unique visitors from within the IT channel have connected to the Channel Transformation Alliance's multi-language website to read educational content, download practical business tools, and watch training videos. Member companies in the Channel Transformation Alliance have met face-to-face in various European cities and participated in workshop sessions to develop program content, align on educational messaging, and respond to reseller feedback.
"The Channel Transformation Alliance is focused on transitioning the reseller business model and providing guidance to the channel on the pragmatic steps to achieve that within a reseller business. The leaders within this Alliance are showing us that they understand the issues that our business is facing," noted Zaki Farooq, CEO of IT reseller Computrad Europe LTD-UK, "Channel Transformation Alliance is giving us not only a step by step approach that we need to build the managed services business, but also gives us invaluable advice, tools and practical steps on how to get started to make a successful business transformation"
As a result of enhancements launched on 1st October, the website www.channeltransformation.com will include both a 'Beginner' track and an 'Advanced' track in order to address resellers in the channel who are at different stages of adoption and business model maturity for Cloud Computing and the technologies mentioned earlier. Over 1000 resellers have actively used this website and our members' partner portals to apply the step by step business transformation the Alliance is evangelizing. For them, broadening the technology scope is a logical next phase to help them build a healthy solutions portfolio containing not only cloud solutions but also other advanced and emerging end-to-end solutions. Understanding those new technologies will help the reseller to create own in-house solutions and to identify cross-sell opportunities ultimately helping them to become a successful Cloud Services Broker and Cloud Services Provider.
Visit eu.ingrammicro.com or www.ingrammicro.com.
