Avnet Services Boosts IBM-Related Training Offerings

Avnet Services' IBM-related educational portfolio is getting bigger and hopefully better, the company said last week.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based distributor said it's adding 70 IBM training courses in areas such as business analytics, Java Enterprise Edition and mobile development to the more than 2,500 it already offers.

Avnet also plans to enhance its existing self-paced online course offerings by making instructors available for office hours during the 30-day duration of the class, said Matt Fox, senior director of education services for Avnet Services.

[Related: Avnet Adds IBM's SoftLayer To Cloud Services Portfolio]

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Opportunity abounds for channel partners in Avnet's education and training space, Fox said, and ranges from co-developing courses to reselling educational services to training their own staff on IBM products.

"The solution providers benefit from having educated and capable customers that can benefit from the solutions they're offering," Fox said.

Solution providers can resell Avnet's education courses or credits for a nice margin, Fox said, similar to how they resell hardware and software. And although most Avnet students are employees of Fortune 2000 companies, channel partners and IBM employees also enroll in Avnet's classes.

The most significant involvement, though, comes from channel partners who help author or deliver course material.

Avnet works with VARs and MSPs to take existing instructor-led courses on topics such as the AIX operating systems and convert them into self-paced classes, Fox said. Partners will come into royalties as Avnet sells the self-paced classes to businesses, with margins split between Avnet and the solution provider.

Avnet will also ask channel partners to deliver the training for instructor-led courses if the enrollees are situated in America.

Avnet's delivery of IBM courses began in July 2013 when IBM decided to stop operating its education and training programs as a business, and instead brought on five partners globally -- including Avnet, Arrow Electronics and Ingram Micro -- to deliver the content.

IBM aims to triple the number of global training days within a few years, Fox said, with the ultimate goal of boosting adoption rates for IBM products since more people are versed in the technology.

Avnet is allowed to not only teach courseware developed by IBM, Fox said, but can also add to the offerings based on what the company is hearing from customers and partners.

Although Avnet also offers Cisco, HP, VMware and vendor-agnostic training, Fox said the IBM offerings are unique since Avnet is allowed to deviate from the vendor's prescribed curriculum and try something new.

Training and enablement is one of three core areas for CGS, a Manhattan-based solution provider.

The programming began in 2001 when CGS became the first tech company to offer self-paced classes with virtual labs, said Doug Stephen, senior vice president and general manager of CGS Canada. The platform was provided exclusively to IBM, for which CGS is a premier reseller, Stephen said.

When IBM shifted last year to delivering its educational content through global training providers, CGS linked up with Avnet and continued to create IBM curriculum and offer classroom instruction, Stephen said. CGS is Avnet's largest reseller of IBM software in Canada, Stephen said.

"We eat what we drink," he said.

Although Stephen said it can sometimes be easier to work directly with the vendor, he said Avnet has also proven to be a strong provider of education and training services.

Stephen said he's glad IBM and Avnet recognize not only the need for better technology, but also want to ensure workforces are trained and proficient in the new technology.

"As IBM goes," he said, "the demand for our courses go."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 3, 2014