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Tech Data CEO Rich Hume On The Apollo Deal, $750M Digital Transformation And ‘State of The Art’ StreamOne Platform
O’Ryan Johnson
‘StreamOne will be white labeled to the reseller community, meaning that all of our capability can be used by our resellers with their brand on the capability as they engage with their end users,’ says Tech Data CEO Rich Hume. ‘We're at a time here where there's a fork in the road as it relates to the type of tools, processing and capabilities that resellers and solution providers and MSPs will need. You should think about this $750 million investment as a big down payment in being able to bring that capability to market for them as they look at bringing their solutions ultimately to their customers and to the rest of the market.’
A New Day At Tech Data
Clearwater, Fla. distribution giant Tech Data – which this week closed a deal with private equity powerhouse Apollo Global Management to take the company private – is gearing up for a massive second half of 2020, with a $750 million investment aimed at digital initiatives around cloud, core business capabilities and better data and analytics.
“Traditionally, a lot of business was done through the business partner ecosystem, face-to-face,” CEO Rich Hume told CRN. “Now many people are being very innovative as it relates to sales engagement and proposals virtually. It’s different. We’re all learning. I think under the circumstances, the business partner ecosystem is really shining and getting accomplished what our customers need us to … It’s just awesome to see the work that gets done across the entire business partner ecosystem.”
Since March, the distributor has helped thousands of partners deliver IT goods and services through a pandemic and constantly shifting travel restrictions and moved workers remote, while also managing their own businesses. Hume said the last few months Tech Data employees stepped up to deliver the best possible outcomes for customers.
“The one thing that really impressed me is how agile and resilient 15,000 Tech Data colleagues can be throughout the world,” Hume said. “Flipping the light switch and in days going from everybody on-prem to off-prem and seamlessly being able to carry on with business, and then ensuring that our logistic center colleagues were all kept safe and had a good environment to work in, such that we could meet the essential needs of the market at that point, namely, remote work.”
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