Ingram Micro Portal: Service Contract Info At Your Fingertips

The Reseller Services Portal is powered by MaintenanceNet and helps solution providers take extended warranty or technology refresh options to their end users, said Jason Beal, group manager of the Ingram Micro Service Network.

“VARs derive two-thirds of their revenue from their current install base. This is a way to continue finding more business from current customers,” Beal said. “Service contracts are not an easy sell, even though they’re necessary in mission-critical environments. [The portal] gives a VAR 90 days’ notice to get it in their pipeline and also reminds them throughout the sales cycle so there’s no chance of a lapse in protection.”

The Santa Ana, Calif., distributor plans to unveil the portal this week at its VentureTech Network Spring Invitational in Montreal, but it is open to all solution providers at no cost, said Nicole Aptekar, U.S. group marketing manager for Ingram Micro. Initially, the portal will include solution providers’ data for Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and IBM service contracts. Other vendors’ information will be added later, she said.

Sarcom, Columbus, Ohio, is one of about 400 solution providers that have been testing the portal since February. The company now tracks thousands of HP CarePaqs, said Bob Golden, business development manager of vendor maintenance solutions at Sarcom. “Occasionally, we get reports from HP of what is expiring in the next 90 days. Now we can forecast at least a year out and start working with customers on those immediately,” Golden said. “It has virtually automated a process that was almost completely manual. We’re still learning, but I’d say it will save us at least 40 hours a month [in administrative costs],” he said.

MaintenanceNet helps track customer data with five of the top 10 distributors, said Scott Herron, president and CEO of the Carlsbad, Calif., company. Most distributors use the tool internally, he said. Avnet Partner Solutions launched a services tracking portal in September for its IBM customers, but Ingram Micro is the first broadline distributor to offer it, Herron said.

“Enterprise VARs have traditionally been fairly good at renewals. In the commercial space, a lot of annuity revenue opportunity is not being accessed by partners,” he said. “This is the first time on a grand scale that VARs have this visibility.”