TechSelect About to Get More Physical

The Clearwater, Fla., distributor is looking to create subgroups within TechSelect that focus on specialized technologies such as professional audio/video and physical security.

The idea is to foster partnerships between dealers selling those technologies and IT-focused solution providers, said Annette Taber, director of Tech Data’s Advanced Technologies Group, which includes the Pro A/V, Physical Security and POS/AIDC specialized business units (SBUs).

Tech Data would create special membership criteria to attract pro A/V and physical security dealers to TechSelect, potentially increasing the number of new members. To accommodate new members, Tech Data likely will expand the number of TechSelect events next year in order to keep each conference more intimate, Taber said.

“We don’t want to end up in a convention center. We will still limit the number of resellers at more events,” she said. For example, Tech Data limited attendance to about 175 of its 463 members at its TechSelect conference this week in Louisville, Ky.

Tech Data relaunched its Physical Security SBU in Louisville to get solution providers thinking about that technology, executives said. Physical security dealers likely will attend TechSelect events by early next year, Taber said.

“The one thing that’s probably similar in [physical security] space and the A/V space is most of the non-IT guys don’t see Tech data as a serious player. We have a lot of work to put the tools in place, to build the infrastructure, the marketing plans, the potential market development funds, to wrap our arms around this. We want to show them that you too can migrate into this [IT] world,” she said.

The distributor has sold physical security products to more than 1,000 solution providers and it expects the SBU to bring many more customers, said Dan Smith, marketing manager for Tech Data’s Pro A/V and Physical Security SBUs.

“That technology is starting to come in at a [high] volume level. IP video surveillance has disrupted the legacy [analog] technology to the point where the performance, scalability and cost per channel can be lower in new deployments,” Smith said. “It’s no longer adopting technology for the sake of technology. It’s a solid business proposition.”

Taber led TechSelect for four years until recently taking over the Advanced Technologies Group and feels that group is the perfect spot to bring resellers of multiple technologies together.

“I want to bridge the gap between traditional analog [security] guys, push them toward the digital world. We can help them do that. Also on the IT side, we can train those solution providers to branch into new markets and add on to their existing client bases. That’s where we begin to see sub-communities in TechSelect for all these areas,” she said.

Fredrik Nilsson, general manager at Axis Communications, a maker of IP surveillance cameras, said Tech Data has picked an opportune time to enter the physical security market.

“We’ve been growing at 30 percent to 40 percent for the last few years, but last year we really started to accelerate. Now we’re close to three-digit growth,” he said.