Platforms, Not Products

The role of distribution has gone through massive changes over the last few years as its offerings and services evolved from product sales and related deployment and configuration support to now encompass cloud-based offerings and services, recurring revenue opportunities, and the ability to tie it all together in a package that solution providers can bring to their clients while adding their own value-adds.

Sean Kerins, the former global president for Arrow’s Enterprise Computing Solutions and as of December the chief operating officer for all of Arrow, recently spoke exclusively with CRN about the changing role of distribution and how that in turn has led to huge changes in how Arrow works with channel partners. During the discussion, Kerins talked about the importance of platforms as a way to bring together multi-technology and multi-vendor solutions that may include on-premises and cloud products and services, and the importance of distribution as a means for aggregating them all together for solution providers.

For a look at the changes distribution is going through, and what’s in store going forward, click through the slideshow.