Synnex Drives New Outsourcing Initiative

Synnex is out to change what it means to be a distributor in the public-sector space. The company is driving a new outsourcing initiative that places Synnex on the bid, offering an array of IT services that resellers can augment with their own capabilities to help win government contracts.

"As a supplier, we're reactionary; [customers] come to us for the transactional piece," says Eddie Franklin, associate vice president of government programs and field sales at Synnex. "We want to be a subcontractor, so when someone's chasing an RFP, they'll include Synnex on the actual response."

For example, if a small business gets wind of a set-aside opportunity with the Department of Homeland Security, it may tap SAIC to provide technical services, General Dynamics for information assurance solutions, and Synnex for IT integration. The small business pays a fee for service to Synnex, which may be rolled into the opportunity or offset through aggressive pricing for hardware, Franklin says. By making Synnex a player in the opportunity, the reseller theoretically has more options available to adjust the bid to meet the requirements of the customer.

"We want our customers to ask, 'Where can I be better?'" Franklin says. "We think of the services we offer as a laundry list [that they can choose from]," naming credit and collection, alternative financing and e-commerce among the other services available.

Recently, Synnex offered services in support of Appro on the Peloton Supercomputing Project from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)'s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Synnex built a 2,400-node Linux cluster with AMD processors from its engineering facility in Fremont for the project, which supports programs that ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent for the NNSA.

Franklin says Synnex is not interested in competing with customer resellers, but rather making them more competitive in their bids for government work.

"The reseller is the quarterback and we're the guard in the scenario," Franklin says. "We don't write the proposals, we just provide the support they need."