TD Synnex Debuts PartnerLink Community With Focus On Specialization

‘It’s more about really understanding where we can help a partner grow their business within a certain technology. So if you’re really skilled in cloud but you’re really weak in security, that’s where we can build you up,’ says Gary Palenbaum, TD Synnex’s executive vice president of revenue and customer success.

IT distributor TD Synnex Tuesday unveiled PartnerLink, a new channel partner community structure that the company said puts its communities more in line with partners’ requirements.

PartnerLink is focused on making sure communities evolve around all TD Synnex partners’ unique needs, said Kristi Kirby (pictured above right), senior vice president of North American communities for the Fremont, Calif.-based distributor. Kirby is leading the PartnerLink rollout.

“If you look at what that really means, we’re rapidly expanding the benefits,” Kirby told CRN. “We’ve launched a great amount of new peer groups. We’ve got all these exclusive pilots running for our communities’ members. We have additional practice builders where we’re enabling our community members, first and foremost, on a number of different technologies as well as a number of different business paths.”

The move comes as channel partners continue to see a lot of interest and expansion opportunities for complex new technologies, Kirby said.

“We are making sure that we are readying our partners to meet the market before the market really gets here, and we’ve got a lot of dedicated support,” she said. “And of course, that’s wrapped around a lot of services that are going to make an impact. That’s not necessarily taking from partner services but really augmenting what they have and what they need to support their end customers.”

TD Synnex want to make sure partners have the competence needed to stay in front of fast-changing end customer requirements, Kirby said. Partner communities have long been key to that, she said.

“We felt we have an opportunity now to take that to the next level and provide an environment for partners to succeed and make sure that they can build relationships and trust and reliance, not just with their own company but across this ecosystem of partners to really meet and support their own customers in a more meaningful way,” she said.

While it is important for solution providers to ready for the future of technologies including security, cloud and AI, just as important is the need to collaborate with peers, said Gary Palenbaum (pictured above left), TD Synnex’s executive vice president of revenue and customer success.

“Not everybody has the capabilities or the knowledge to do it all, and we want to bring that to the market,” Palenbaum told CRN. “It’s not about customer, it's not about SMB, it’s not about midmarket, it’s not about enterprise. It’s about what these partners can bring from a technology skill standpoint and how we can enable them to get there. We’re trying to get ahead of it, and we've lined up the communities to do just that.”

With PartnerLink, TD Synnex is pivoting the coverage model and benefits of communities to focus not only on today’s partner needs but those of the next three to five years, Kirby said.

“Communities have been around a long time. We’ve had a lot of success in our history with communities for some time, so there’s a really strong foundation. But what we’ve done is taken the coverage model, the benefits, and we’ve pivoted those to meet partners not just in today’s climate, in today’s business environment, but truly thinking if you look at opportunity today, three years out, five years out, for the long haul,” she said.

“We want to provide partners what they need to truly build and pivot their entire company around that technology,” Kirby added. “To capitalize on that, we’re using a combination of a lot of data, market intelligence, market insight. We’re utilizing our partner councils in a much more meaningful way. We formed all these different committee structures, even within the councils, to where they’re not really just generalized voices but instead are community-based structures that are focused on specific projects and building that enablement alongside us.”

PartnerLink is also aimed at helping partners speak for themselves with their peers, Kirby said.

“We want to make sure that their voices are being heard because it establishes an environment of trust and support and partnership when you’re in it together with somebody who understands your day-to-day environment, your day-to-day life. And we want to make sure that we’re featuring that,” she said.

PartnerLink is replacing TD Synnex’s CommunitySolv infrastructure as the overall community infrastructure, making it more flexible to meet partner needs, Kirby said.

Channel partners may join four newly established peer-to-peer communities depending on their areas of specialization or geographic focus, with more slated to come. The initial four include:

PartnerLink Ascend: A U.S.-based community focused on digital transformation leveraging advanced infrastructure, security, cloud and analytics capabilities powered by AI
PartnerLink Advantage: A U.S.-based community focused on advancing infrastructure modernization
PartnerLink Canada: A Canada-based community for partners focused on all sectors and technologies
PartnerLink Public Sector: A community for any PartnerLink members selling into the public sector

Compared with the previous CommunitySolv, PartnerLink will offer improved market intelligence, lead generation and other new tools and directories aimed at helping partners better engage with each other, Kirby said.

PartnerLink is more about specialization than it is about generalization, Palenbaum said.

“It’s more about really understanding where we can help a partner grow their business within a certain technology,” he said. “So if you’re really skilled in cloud but you’re really weak in security, that’s where we can build you up. … It’s really about understanding specifically how they go to market. Where do they want to grow? Before, it was very generalized. You came here, you had a great time. ... But I think today, it’s really understanding the needs of each specific partner within the council, within the community, to understand where they want to grow, then listening and providing a solution for them to get to that next level.”

Michael Sheil, president of Whalley Computer Associates, a Southwick, Mass.-based solution provider who has been on TD Synnex’s partner council for almost five years, told CRN that the distributor made sure partners participated in developing PartnerLink.

“I think TD Synnex did a really, really good job of listening, not only to us but to their entire partner community involved via CommunitySolv,” Sheil said. “I think they did a wonderful job listening to their partners and taking that feedback they were getting.”

With PartnerLink, Sheil said he has seen an increased presence from TD Synnex’s executive leadership than he saw with CommunitySolv.

Sheil also liked seeing “partner” in the PartnerLink name.

“Partnering is what TD Synnex is really striving to push,” he said. “I think it’s super exciting for the folks that are that are joining or are part of this new journey.”

Connecting with peers is important to Walley Computer Associates’ success, Sheil said.

“PartnerLink provides access to the executive leadership of TD Synnex, but really what I get out of it is connecting with my peers,” he said. We openly share challenges that we may have and solutions that maybe were successful. I really find the openness of the members very interesting. I had conversations at this event with partners that I had never met before. We discussed solutions.”

For example, Sheil said, he and fellow PartnerLink members held a roundtable to talk about hiring new talent in sales.

“It was amazing, all the same challenges we have,” he said. “You know, how do you find a good seller? How do you grow that good seller? What’s the length of time for someone who is fresh out of college versus someone who has been in the industry?Someone from the industry maybe can help drive sales quicker for you. Do you take that younger resource straight out of college, knowing that you want to develop that person, and hopefully he or she has a longer successful career with you, but you have to do that initial investment? … There were probably 12 of my peers there, and that was the last talking point that we had. We were supposed to end at 5:00, but they had to pull us out of there at about 5:20 so we could get to the next session.”

Anthony J. D’Ambrosi, CEO of Abacus Group, a New York-based MSP and MSSP and co-chair of TD Synnex’s Partner Advisory Council, told CRN that the distributor started working with partners to reimagine what communities would look like right after Patrick Zammit took over as CEO.

“As a selected board member, I’ve been co-involved in this for quite some time, and I respect the fact that TD Synnex vetted some of many of the strategic decisions with us,” D’Ambrosi said. “I wouldn’t say we were making those decisions. We were consulted, but our input was incorporated pretty heavily. I view what they’re doing as a top-down strategic initiative. I have a relationship with Patrick Zammit, so there is a very direct link between executive sponsorship and what we’re doing right here.”

PartnerLink is more than just a rebranding of communities, D’Ambrosi said.

“What they’re doing is they’re customizing the partner benefits and the engagement model with partner types to be much more targeted across the community and they’re quantifying that in a manner such that when you’re engaging in a certain tranche of the program, it’ll be very specific what’s expected of you and what you can expect as outcomes,” he said. “So it’s going to be a lot more structured. I don’t want to quite say ‘playbook-driven’ but more structured.”

Prior to PartnerLink, TD Synnex’s community programs were more homogenous and “one size fits all,” which tended to dilute the benefits, D’Ambrosi said.

“Now we’ve tightened everything up, including how we run the board,” he said. “We’re running the board now much more like a board versus an occasional consultative body. … We looked at three different strategic alternatives, and the one we’ve come up with, I think, is optimal in terms of inclusiveness while ensuring partners understand the specific benefit they’ll get depending on what tier of the program they’re in.”