TD Synnex Victorious In Inaugural Global Channel Cup

The close partnership between TD Synnex and HPE made for an exciting championship matchup.

The final round of the first-ever CRN Global Channel Cup Tournament pitted two close partners against each other, with distributor TD Synnex emerging as the winner against infrastructure powerhouse HPE.

The close relationship between the two companies, solidified in May when HPE tapped TD Synnex as one of its two global distribution partners, is reflective of the collaborative nature of the channel ecosystem, said Calhoun McKinney, vice president of go to market at TD Synnex, which has dual headquarters in Fremont, Calif., and Clearwater, Fla.

“When you look at this competition, it’s such a reflection of the collaboration and the energy that happens in the channel every single day,” McKinney said. “It’s been really fun to be a part of this.”

The tournament—which ran across CRN.com and its sister sites globally—launched on June 25, matching up some of the channel’s most influential companies in head-to-head battles where CRN’s worldwide readership voted to determine the winners.

In the championship round, HPE jumped out to an early lead, but TD Synnex battled back to become the tournament champion with 65 percent of the vote to HPE’s 35 percent.

TD Synnex’s path to victory started with a Round 1 win over WatchGuard Technologies. It then moved past Intel, Microsoft and Arctic Wolf in the next three rounds before besting HPE in the final.

“You have some emerging vendors that made it really far, which is exciting to see,” said McKinney of the bracket-style tournament. “Then of course, you have HPE, who has been just a phenomenal long-standing partner in the channel. So it’s really fun to see the diversity in the competition as well.”

McKinney attributed TD Synnex’s win to the company’s partner-led focus.

“A good program has to look at how are partners defining success and making that how we define success through the program and making sure all of our offerings within it map back to the outcomes our partners are looking to achieve,” she said. “And to do that very well, it’s a lot of listening. It’s a lot of partner engagement. ‘Partner-first’ is the key term we use here internally, and that’s why our digital customer experience is named Partner First. We really try to live that philosophy.”

TD Synnex sees its role as helping drive the IT and channel ecosystem forward, McKinney said.

“This means we are energized every day by the challenge to bring together this entire ecosystem of technology and customers to drive outcomes, and we do that with our specialized people who serve this diverse range of solutions, verticals and partner types as a channel orchestrator,” McKinney said. “We make sure we’re helping the channel as a whole navigate the complexity and, honestly, staying ahead of what’s to come because, as we all know, it’s evolving very quickly.”

Anthony D’Ambrosi, CEO of Abacus Group, a New York-based MSP and MSSP and co-chair of the distributor’s Partner Advisory Council, cited three reasons why he feels TD Synnex stands apart.

“First of all, it goes without saying their global size and scale for partners is a differentiator,” he said. “The reach of their line card and product catalog, their reach geographically, is valuable to [those of us] who are global partners. Second, they are very serious about deploying MSP enablement programs across the board that speak to the souls of MSPs in terms of what our needs are to drive recurring revenue and growth. Third, I like what they’re doing in terms of AI enablement, AI workshopping, AI thought leadership. Those three dynamics, to me, are the highly differentiated nature of why they would win.

For a channel partner like Abacus Group, TD Synnex’s global reach is essential, D’Ambrosi said.

“Their scale helps enable my scale as I enter different global markets, different strategies around being a vertically integrated global MSP,” he said. “My ability to leverage them in multiple countries around the world has me very excited. They’ve helped me enter the [United Arab Emirates] market and other markets across the EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] region.

Doug Westervelt, CEO of Internetworks, a Portland, Ore.-based solution provider and MSP that has been working almost exclusively with TD Synnex for about 25 years, told CRN he is not surprised to see the distributor take the CRN Global Channel Cup.

“We put all of our eggs in [the TD Synnex] basket and built our relationship there,” Westervelt said. “Back [when we started working together] we didn’t call it ‘partnership.’ It became a shared destiny.”

TD Synnex has repaid Internetworks’ loyalty over the years, Westervelt said.

“The ‘distie’ business is all about getting access to the right people,” he said. “And that’s one of the big things I appreciate at TD Synnex. … There are people who care and a lot of really dedicated folks there.”

‘Consistency, Profitability And Predictability’

For HPE, it was a special experience to share in the final round with a strong partner like TD Synnex, said Simon Ewington, senior vice president of worldwide channel and partner ecosystem at the Spring, Texas-based vendor.

“I’m actually thrilled with TD Synnex’s win because they’re a huge partner for us, being one of our new global distributors,” Ewington said. “I know [TD Synnex CEO] Patrick [Zammit] and the team super well. I spend a lot of time with him every month. We’re both winners, and I genuinely mean that. Maybe I would have felt slightly different if it hadn’t been a strong partner of HPE's, but given it’s TD Synnex, I’m just thrilled to get to the final.”

HPE reached the Global Channel Cup final with a Round 1 win against ThreatLocker. It then held off AMD, Pax8 and Lenovo in later rounds.

HPE succeeds because it builds its partner program for partners and not for itself, Ewington said.

“We always focused on consistency, profitability and predictability,” he said. “For example, at HPE’s Partner Growth Summit last month, we called out profitability as a key area of focus. We know our partners are there to make money, which is one of the reasons why we embrace them developing their own services practices. We know that’s very margin-rich, and I think we take a rather unique approach in the industry. And recognizing that the program is built for partners to drive their success, I think, is what ultimately makes a great channel program. And we’ve got many examples of how we’re doing that with our Partner Ready Vantage program and the power of one portfolio and one program to ultimately drive one experience for our partners.”

Looking ahead, HPE is continuing to bring together a single partner experience, in particular as it integrates its Juniper acquisition, Ewington said.

“It’s about having one on-boarding process into the program, having one registration program that we will launch in [the first half of 2027], one certification program,” he said. “It’s really about how you drive simplicity to encourage cross-selling across what now is a fairly unique portfolio in the market. Nobody has a portfolio of our breadth now with the acquisition of Juniper.”

HPE is also looking to grow its partner program with such things as its new competitive storage program, which can give partners margins of up to 24 percent, and partner-branded services to help ensure partners own their customers’ end-to-end service relationships, Ewington said.

“For some of our partners who focus on services capabilities and ownership of the relationship end to end, yes, that will be a game-changer,” he said.

Dan Molina, co-president and CTO of Nth Generation, a San Diego-based solution provider and longtime HPE channel partner, told CRN that HPE over the years has proven that it has a true partner-first culture.

“We feel that HPE treats our technical and sales team members as an extension of their own efforts,” Molina said. “They have over the last two years or more added more access to partners in terms of technical training and the tools that are necessary to be successful.”

For example, Molina cited HPE’s new VM Essentials.

“It really has become a very strong player in the virtualization market and has provided a real option for customers who are not able to afford some of the increased pricing from Broadcom,” he said. “At HPE Discover, they made it a channel-only play. HPE is really putting their money where their mouth is and proving that they truly are a partner-first culture.”

HPE’s recent promise to increase quote validity to 30 days was a brave move for the company, Molina said.

“It goes to show how good of a grip the leadership has on what’s going on with their supply chain and some of the strong agreements that they have had for years,” he said. “That commitment is allowing channel partners like us to have a more stable business.”

Molina also applauded HPE’s move to consolidate multiple channel programs, including Juniper’s, into one, which is scheduled to happen by Nov. 1.

“HPE is always thinking about the partners, especially the ones that are committed to their solutions,” he said. “There’s a lot of engagement, and there’s a true spirit of partnership. HPE values that quite a bit.”