TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit On The ‘Significant’ Productivity Gains Partners Will See From Agentic AI-Infused Digital Bridge

'I’m expecting that the productivity gains for our partners’ co-workers [are] going to be significant so they can go after new business,' said Zammit. 'The combination of the stickiness and better productivity allows them to focus on value-added tasks with customers that should generate profitable growth for our partners.'

TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit says the new agentic AI update for the distributor’s Digital Bridge platform is poised to drive significant productivity gains for partners.

“I’m expecting that the productivity gains for our partners’ co-workers [are] going to be significant so they can go after new business,” said Zammit in an interview with CRN discussing the benefits of the retrieval augmented generation-based agentic AI system. “The combination of the stickiness and better productivity allows them to focus on value-added tasks with customers that should generate profitable growth for our partners.”

Zammit said the vision for the agentic AI-based update is to provide partners’ sales reps or co-workers an AI-based digital assistant aimed at providing better business outcomes for their end-user customers.

In fact, the tool will eventually allow a partner connecting to the system to “get some ideas on actions he can take with some of his end users to win some new business,” he said. “That's how powerful this whole thing is.”

The agentic AI-based Digital Bridge offering opens the door for partner sales reps to tie into TD Synnex intellectual property on business outcomes and solutions directly at the point they are communicating with customers in Microsoft Teams or Outlook to win business.

“We are taking partnership with our customers to the next level, and indeed, we are going to leverage technology to improve the quality of the support and the solutions we deliver to our partners,” said Zammit. “It’s a new way of working. It’s the next level of partnership with our customers to create more impact for them.”

While other distributors are focusing on building platforms that require partners to log into a new platform, partners working with TD Synnex continue to work in the applications they are using to connect with end-user customers to capture business.

“The concept of Digital Bridge is meeting the customer where he is,” said Zammit. “It is not just meeting the partner where he is, it is meeting the personas at the customer where they are. What the team did very smartly is to start by prioritizing the concept with the applications that are commonly used in a partner environment: Outlook and Teams.”

Zammit said his message to partners regarding the powerful agentic AI functionality is: “We have developed a tool which will make the life of your co-workers easier so that they can redeploy their time to value-added activities with their own customers. Embrace it to improve productivity, stickiness with your end users, improve the experience with your customers and grow sales for your company.”

Below is more of CRN’s conversation with Zammit.

What is the genesis of the Digital Bridge product?

It all started with [Michael Kanan, chairman and CEO of solution provider Inacomp] coming to me one day and saying, ‘I have a vision.’ … I just started in the job and my vision was we are going to focus on the operational excellence of the partner community, and we are going to automate all the transactions between TD Synnex and the partner. That was the vision at the very beginning of this. At the time, AI was not even part of the discussion.

I loved the idea because we have two ways to contribute to the success of our partners. The first one is, and I believe it continues to be the most important one, is we need to be here to help our partners accelerate [both] growth and profitable growth. But at the same time because there is pressure in the market, because our partners want to invest in supporting their end users and basically streamlining the transactional aspect of their businesses, they are looking for superior ways their business can be automated. I said, ‘I’m all in.’ It was very exciting.

On top of this it came from our partner community telling us we have a vision, and if you can deliver that you are going to have a big impact on our profitability and obviously you will benefit from it.

Then I brought [TD Synnex Senior Vice President and North America CIO] Nate [Herz] in and asked him, ‘What do you think?’ He embraced it immediately.

How committed are you to the Digital Bridge platform?

I am fully committed to it.

What is the investment in the Digital Bridge platform?

In terms of investment, that is the beauty of it. It is a very reasonable investment. [TD Synnex has allocated less than12 development resources to the project]. So it’s not a lot. It’s a very reasonable investment for potentially a huge return for our partners. And then if we can bring that type of differentiation [to partners], you can imagine what it means to us in terms of business growth.

So for me, what is the outcome of the whole initiative? We create more value for the partners. We create more loyalty from the partners. They want to do more business with us because we are much easier to work with. The outcome is going to be significant profitable growth for our top line. That is what we are looking for.

In distribution there is a lot of business available. It is not always profitable, but here we are creating enough value so that I believe our partners will be happy to continue to pass business to us. That’s the vision.

What are some of the benefits of agentic AI-based Digital Bridge versus some of the platforms that are being developed in distribution?

Today even if the distributors are developing state-of-the-art platforms, the co-workers of the partners have to go to the platforms of each [distributor] or all the [distributors]. That means they have to leave their own applications to work in our environment. From a productivity standpoint, that is not ideal.

The concept of Digital Bridge is meeting the customer where he is. But it is not meeting the partner where he is, it is meeting the personas at the customer where they are. What the team did very smartly is to start by prioritizing the concept with the applications that are commonly used in a partner environment: Outlook and Teams. Most of the people are using those applications. By using those two applications, partners are basically working with their end users.

So if you need to give them an update on an order, or a quote, within Outlook and Teams you have access to the TD Synnex environment and you can collect the data to meet your customer’s expectation. That is extremely powerful. We are meeting the co-workers of our partners where they are and where they work in that environment. That is a fantastic innovation.

How is this different than Ingram Micro’s Xvantage?

We are integrating our system into the system of our customers. We are connecting the two systems and integrating the two. Basically, we have made it a seamless environment for the co-workers of our partners.

We call it Digital Bridge. I don’t know if we should find another term for it. That is really the concept behind it.

Nate has developed this based on the feedback of the Digital Bridge steering board and project team.

So we are introducing agentic AI so that not only does the [solution provider] co-worker have access to our system in his system, but on top of it the co-worker will now have an agent, an assistant, who is going to help him navigate our system to collect the data and accelerate the outcome for his end user.

What kind of sales impact do you see this having on TD Synnex and its partners?

I’m going to give you a very politically correct answer. It maximizes the chances to deliver the guidance we gave to the Street, which is mid-single- digit growth. But the future will tell if in fact the impact will be even greater. But for the moment, for sure it will help us deliver on our promises to the Street.

Back to the fundamentals. In our industry it is about relationships, and then it’s about creating the functionalities our partners need to win in the market from a sales growth perspective.

What kind of impact do you see Digital Bridge having on end-user customers?

Today the end users of our partners want their quotes very rapidly. They don’t want to wait to get information. Now our partner co-workers and sellers will be able to answer the questions of those end users very quickly in real time. That improves the customer experience and as a result stickiness [with the customer].

I’m expecting that the productivity gains for our partners’ co-workers [are] going to be significant so they can go after new business. The combination of the stickiness and better productivity allows them to focus on value-added tasks with customers that should generate profitable growth for our partners.

Are you going to reduce the amount of salespeople you have or account reps calling on customers as a result of this?

As a distributor today what we want is to have more strategic discussions, to free up time for our sales team to have more strategic discussions with the partners. We want to develop growth plans together and develop operational excellence enhancement plans.

By being more strategic you are going to be to in a better position to sell deeper because you are creating more value for your customer.

I want to create bandwidth. I want to redeploy working time toward higher- value-added tasks rather than admin tasks, which consume a lot of bandwidth but don’t really create value for the customer. That’s the idea.

We strongly believe that to stay relevant in the future you have to deliver, of course, digital tools, but the relationship will remain critical in winning. So we want to continue to have people speaking to people. But the nature of the discussion should move from where’s my order, what’s the price to where do you think the technology is heading to? What do you think of this vendor? Do you think it could create growth opportunity for me? That’s where the discussion needs to move.

Is this a big breakthrough for TD Synnex from your perspective?

Absolutely. When you look at it, we have 10 strategic imperatives. We have operational excellence and commercial excellence at the core of our strategy. The answer is yes. This is one example of how we are leveraging AI.

Nate, who is driving the [AI] agenda for North America, has many more examples where we are already leveraging AI to improve the experience of our customers and our processes internally.

How do you see Digital Bridge developing in the future?

As we progress in the project, we are identifying new opportunities and new functionalities we can create. Basically the scope of the project has evolved because technology, AI in particular, has created new opportunities to deliver new functionalities.

It’s operational excellence and now on top we have added commercial excellence.

For me it’s a philosophy of how we want to work with our partners. TD Synnex now wants to co-engineer and co-develop solutions with our customers. You can imagine how powerful this. We are not only welcoming the ideas from our customers, but we are also inviting them to help us develop the right solution for them.

Nate and his team are doing a fabulous job enhancing the tools. It’s getting more and more intelligent and more impactful. The next step for us is to drive the adoption with our partners.

Because we have co-developed the solution with our partners, we are now going to rely on this partner community to drive the adoption with their teams. That is not to be underestimated. That is the next step. It is very important. Because a tool which is not adopted is worth nothing. So that’s going to be important.

But the fact that we have this mindset of partnership with our customers to co-develop the solutions, we’re also going to have the same mindset to co- drive the adoption.

What is your vision on the how this AI agent story is going to develop for your partners?

We are taking partnership with our customers to the next level, and indeed, we are going to leverage technology to improve the quality of the support and the solutions we deliver to our partners.

It's a new way of working. It’s the next level of partnership with our customers to create more impact for them.

Do you think this is going to be a huge differentiator versus the rest of the distribution landscape?

In four and a half quarters, we have moved move from nothing or an idea to a solution, which is not only integrating and connecting with the systems of our partners but on top of that it is already powered by agentic AI, which is the latest technology.

So my point is, you can see how fast we are moving. Nate and his team are fully empowered to continue listening, getting inputs from the council, and continuing to evolve the tool extremely fast.

For me the biggest opportunity is the adoption. If I have a dream, it is that all our customers adopt it. It also becomes a good opportunity for new partners to join us, to embrace the power of the tool and to accelerate growth on their side. So adoption is now the next frontier.

What is your message to partners on the power of this Digital Bridge platform?

For me, it is very, very simple. We have developed a tool which will make the life of your co-workers easier so that they can redeploy their time to value- added activities with their own customers. Embrace it to improve productivity, stickiness with your end users, improve the experience with your customers and grow sales for your company. That is the message.

Will partners have to pay a premium for this service?

We are in a very competitive market. I don’t think that is going to happen. Prices are going to remain under pressure.

This is not a tool we are developing to increase our prices or to justify price increases. That is not the ambition.

We need to continue to deliver competitive prices. But our customers are more convinced than ever that we are the partner of choice, and in return we are improving their ability to grow sales faster because of the benefits of the tool. That is a fantastic outcome for us. It’s sales growth at a decent margin and it’s a closer trusted relationship with the partners.

What is the basic philosophy behind Digital Bridge?

When all the partners win, we win. It is very simple. When they win, we win. That is the whole philosophy we have in the company.