Ingram Micro Picks VentureTech President For Services Expertise

Scott Goemmel, executive vice president of PMV Technologies, Troy, Mich., was named VTN president because of his experience in building a managed services practice, said Justin Crotty, vice president of North America channel marketing at Ingram, Santa Ana, Calif.

“He has a big-time services shop and can help migrate [VTN] to more of a services- and solutions-oriented model,” Crotty said. “I want services to be a critical part of what we do, and Scott is a great sounding board for that. It&s important for us to have more VARs that look like Scott than we have today.”

Previously, VTN presidents were selected by a member vote. PMV Technologies joined the network two years ago, and last year Goemmel served on its services advisory council. VTN now has more than 400 members.

PMV began its transition to a services model about four years ago, Goemmel said. Now about 85 percent of its revenue comes from services, compared with 15 percent from product sales. Of that 85 percent, about 70 percent stems from recurring revenue deals with customers, he said.

“We have some enterprise customers that we do remedial maintenance and product deployment for nationwide, leveraging the Ingram Micro Service Network. We also have an SMB business, in which we do full IT outsourcing for a fixed monthly fee,” Goemmel said.

PMV&s business model relies on partnering and shows how a small company can have a national services reach, Goemmel said. More than 50 percent of its services transactions involve fellow VTN or Ingram Micro Service Network members, he said.

Like Crotty, Goemmel expects more solution providers to tackle managed services in the coming years. At the recent VTN Fall Invitational, roughly half of the members raised their hands when asked if they now sell or plan to sell managed services. Fewer members raised their hands in response to that question last year.

Switching to a managed services focus won&t be easy for many solution providers, and Goemmel said he hopes to share the pain that his company felt while making that transition. “Selling a services is diffrent than selling product. The skills to sell are different, and it requires investment,” he said.

The channel also must work out issues concerning full managed-services offerings before more customers adopt a recurring revenue model, Goemmel added. For example, licensing options remain murky: Should solution providers own the equipment or sell it to end users? It will take VARs time to find an efficient, profitable process that also saves the customer money, he said.

“I don&t know if the majority of customers is ready to make [a recurring charge] happen,” Goemmel said. “That&s the next step, but we&re not there yet.”