Tech Data Helps Partners Design, Bring To Market Repeatable IoT And Analytics
The distributor's Analytics and IoT Solution Factory builds on partner requests for help designing IoT solutions by turning them into repeatable offerings, putting them into its catalog of offerings, and adding services.
Tech Data on Wednesday used its TechSelect Spring conference to introduce its TechSelect partner community to a new analytics and IoT strategy aimed at helping partners prepare to bring those technologies to their customers.
The introduction of the Analytics and IoT Solution Factory expands on the company's current capabilities, said Andrea Miner, director of consulting services for analytics and IoT for the Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor.
Tech Data has for some time helped channel partners develop one-off IoT solutions for specific customer requirements, Miner told CRN.
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"We help partners with technical expertise and bridging relationships with vendors," she said. "With the Analytics and IoT Solution Factory, we're now adding repeatability, and not just one-off solutions. That's what's been really missing: Not having the ability to scale solutions."
The Analytics and IoT Solution Factory is primarily a methodology for developing solutions, Miner said.
"Partners can bring us an idea, a use case, or a business problem, and we'll design the solution, test it, develop it, and put it together using Tech Data and partner capabilities," she said. "Then we'll put it in our catalog and make it available as a repeatable solution for our partners. We also partner with services companies to provide services around the solutions."
For the Analytics and IoT Solution Factory, Tech Data is initially partnering with the Intel IoT Market Ready Solutions that include technology from such Intel partners as Advantech, Hitachi Vantara, IBM, Cisco, and Dell EMC, she said.
Tech Data hopes to take advantage of a fast-growing market for IoT and analytics, Miner said. Citing IDC data, she said 40 percent of revenue growth expected between 2018 and 2021 to come from IoT and analytics.
"This is significant," she said. "This tells us data, and making sense of the data, is critical. The Solution Factory lets us help partners in a repeatable way."
Tech Data is also bringing IoT and analytics to its Practice Builder program under which the distributor will not only create and vet the solutions, but will also add go-to-market and business plans to help partners, Miner said.