25 Scenes From Ingram Micro's VTN Shindig

Ingram Micro's Venturetech Network Spring Invitational brought about 300 VARs to the Rosen Shingle Creek resort in Orlando, Fla. While the federal stimulus and the ongoing economic downturn were top of mind for most, VARs also got to enjoy sunshine, good advice from channel observers and their peers, and an opportunity to give back to the local community through Ingram Micro's now-annual charity event.

Ingram Micro's regional VTN chapters are filled with local pride. The large Canadian chapter's meet-and-greet proved hardly an exception.

Ingram Micro CEO Greg Spierkel said he had learned quite a bit while traveling around the world for the past month meeting with Ingram's U.S. and international partners. Although the distributor recently closed portions of its Scandinavian operation, Spierkel emphasized that Ingram "was not as interested in geographies as we are in capabilities."



"You don't want to over-leverage yourself these days," he said.



Spierkel admitted that a down economy meant good companies could be had as M&A targets for cheap. He argued strongly for due diligence, however, saying some companies might be losing the forest for the trees if they try too hard to shop themselves.



"You'll be surprised when you pull back the covers that the company has taken so much out of cost they're not running their relationships well," he said. "Move quickly, but not recklessly."

Ingram Micro's Vice President of Channel Marketing Kirk Robinson said he had heard some VARs and Ingram partner vendors express reservation about Dell's agreement to sell Vostro desktops and monitors through Ingram and Tech Data.





"A lot are asking, 'Is Dell coming in to VTN as a sponsor?' " said Robinson. "We haven't discussed that. HP and IBM and those vendors look at Dell with a certain opinion, so they [the partners] are wondering about the dynamics with those vendors. We've been having competing vendors at VTN for a while, though, and while it doesn't mean it happens easily, we are having conversations."

John Fago, here seen introducing members of the VTN Council, was at the start of the conference named Senior Director of Channel Marketing at Ingram.



The move puts him in charge of VTN as a whole, according to Robinson.





"John has proven himself as an exceptional leader who goes above and beyond to bring new business and innovative ideas to our solution-provider partners and communities," Robinson said. "We're thrilled to have John join our team and not only take on the day-to-day management of Ingram Micro's VTN community, but infuse a new sense of urgency that will work to build new business and relationships with, and for, our VTN members and vendor partners."

Tiffani Bova, vice president of Research for Worldwide Indirect Channel Programs and Sales Strategies at Gartner Research, told VARs they were "continuing to move up the value chain, beyond projects and into solutions."



In her state of the market discussion, Bova highlighted five trends for VARs to keep an eye on, including gradual growth; the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), especially on health care; top priorities from CIOs; drawbacks to managed services growth; and how, if VARs are to continue to have value-add, they'll need to "compete with free."

Larry Hedin, vice president of Sales and Marketing at solution provider Heartland Technology Solutions, and Kendra Lee, president of IT consultancy at KLA Group, advised VARs to rethink the way they train their sales teams -- especially for selling services.



"You need to look beyond cookie-cutter sales training," Hedin advised. "Vision without execution is hallucination."

In helping Heartland with its sales development, Lee said she found a distinct difference between "where [salespeople] felt they were skilled, and where Larry thought they were skilled."

Meghan Kelly, vice president of Channel Sales Development, SMB, for Hewlett-Packard, identified trends she was seeing as coming on strong in SMB -- thus representing good opportunities for VARs -- including virtualization, the standardization of IT infrastructure and a consolidation of purchases.



HP recently added an SMB Elite status to its solution provider partner program, which Kelly reiterated was a segment HP was aggressively pursuing.



"SMB is really changing," Kelly said in an interview with Channelweb.com after her presentation to VARs. "HP knows exactly who the go-to partners are that have really taken off with SMB. They're the ones who understand what a different market it is than midmarket and enterprise, and they've been brilliant about it."

Greg Starr (with microphone), COO of IT Works, Houston, and a member of the VTN Council, championed Ingram Micro's ongoing efforts to foster community among channel partners.

At the opening night vendor pavilion, Doron Kaminski, (middle), vice president of Operations and Business Development for Insite Computer Group, Ontario, gets a good look from Simon Crossley, (right), vice president of Sales at Edge Technology.

Adrian Davis, a sales "scientist" with Whetstone, said in a dramatic speech that not only does today's economic downturn have plenty of historical precedent to learn from, but that VARs could learn a lot simply by looking at the area where major account selling and corporate strategy overlap. Thinking systematically about how your sales force actually functions can give you a lot of insight into how effective your sales are, Davis argued.

Cisco's booth at the vendor pavilion had Wii bowling -- and, of course, never lacked for attention.

Ryan Grant, Ingram Micro's director of Channel Marketing, urged lots of interaction among VARs, especially within their individual chapters.

VTN attendees needed to stay plugged in with the office, though most found a surreptitious glance at a mobile phone sometime during the sessions sufficient.

Bill Wagner, Ingram's senior national sales director, gets caught up from Richard Eldredge, national account distribution manager at Honeywell.

Craig Leopard, vice president of sales and CMO at Design Data Systems, (left) and Greg Schmidt, Product Manager for Virtualization, at Hewlett-Packard check things out.

Left to right: John Azzinaro, president of NetTech, Kenilworth, N.J.; Marie Meoli, president and primary client strategist at White Fox Marketing and Communications; and Teddy Cillis, owner of Lincoln Computer Services, Hicksville, N.Y.

Ingram Micro VTN's Big Apple chapter (covering New York and New Jersey) slows down for just a few seconds to take a group photo.

VARs had plenty of opportunity to interact throughout the weekend. Ingram's Robinson reported that some of the VTN Invitational's strongest positive feedback was regarding the amount of networking time available.

At the 2008 Spring Invitational in New Orleans, Ingram Micro closed the show by giving VARs not only a team-building event, but a unique charitable opportunity: building bikes to donate to an area Boys & Girls club.



At this year's VTN Invitational, the theme continued: VARs fanned out into their respective chapters and built not only bikes, but also stuffed bears; constructed rocking chairs and park benches; prepared small knapsacks with summer camp supplies; and cleaned toys for delivery to local Orlando children and support groups.





Here, an emcee gets everyone in gear.

A member of Ingram Micro Venturetech's Lone Star chapter wastes no time getting started.

Just because it's hard work for charity doesn't mean it can't be fun.

Ingram's Fago (left) and White Fox's Meoli (right), joined Heartland Technology's COO Jane Cage (center) -- and rabbits, dogs, monkeys and other pillow-soft friends.

Is Dan Shunoff (left), president and CEO of Intellicom Computer Consulting, Kearney, Neb., ready to finish off a rocking chair -- or his building partner?

VARs were encouraged to put personal stamps on all the bikes, furniture and other items they finished -- a fitting capper to hard and rewarding work.