Ingram Micro Launches Business Units Focused On Cisco, HP

The first two units are focused on Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard, with each group having its own sales, marketing and technical staffs, according to Ingram Micro.

Ingram Micro is banking on its new structure to spur more business with VARs focused on those vendors, but also to help those solution providers become more efficient in dealing with the vendors.

"Keith Bradley [Ingram's president of North America operations] believes in the business unit structure and there's a lot of efficiencies and a lot of dynamic ways we can support our partners in the VAR market. He's been pretty outspoken on the move to that kind of structure," said Holly Garcia, senior director, vendor management, of the new Ingram Micro Cisco Business Unit.

The Cisco team includes more than 40 Ingram Micro associates and is structured to serve as a hub between Ingram Micro's sales organization, Cisco's sales team and solution providers, Garcia said.

"The benefit of the business unit for the VARs is an improved way of doing business in being able to drive costs out of their model," Garcia said. "We're helping them understand Cisco's programs and business, which is very dynamic and complex. The business unit is about being streamlined and better executing SLAs in working with partners."

Ingram Micro also created a SMARTnet Solution Team that can help build quotes and orders on behalf of solution providers, Garcia said.

"If resellers needs a quote, they can call into the team as opposed to doing it themselves. With the economy the way it is, and Cisco's programs being so complex, we realized we could drive more opportunity there by creating a process for doing quoting and ordering," Garcia said. "It helps [VARs] drive costs out of their model."

Meanwhile, the new HP Business Unit will be led by Mark Maisano, senior director of vendor management for Ingram Micro.

Like the Cisco unit, it was created to give VARs a more efficient relationship when building and buying HP products, according to Scott Zahl, vice president of U.S. vendor management at Ingram Micro.

"It also provides a more seamless customer experience for channel partners and gives us a better value proposition around HP that's unique to the Ingram Micro community," Zahl said.

Ingram Micro's chief competitor, Tech Data, launched its own Cisco-focused business unit in February as a means to increase its focus on data center solutions.

The Cisco Solutions Group will be a unit of Tech Data's Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) division and will work specifically with solution providers interested in selling any Cisco solution, data-center-geared or otherwise, said Chuck Bartlett, formerly Tech Data's vice president of network product marketing, who was named vice president of the Cisco Solutions Group.

"We've had in progress for some time a focus around data center products prior to this [Cisco Unified Computing System] product," Bartlett said. "Having formed the AIS about two-and-one-half years ago, we are really excited about the focus on the data center."