Synnex Expanding Solutions Facility, Hiring New Cloud, Digital Signage Staff

Synnex has embarked upon a $6.5 million expansion of its distribution headquarters to enhance its sales capabilities around cloud, services and digital signage.

The Fremont, Calif.-based distributor plans to open a 40,000-square-foot expansion of its technology solutions facility in Greenville, S.C., by winter 2016, the company said. The addition will house new demo rooms and 150 new salespeople in its CloudSolv, VisualSolv and ServiceSolv business units, according to the company.

"[Our current building] is full from associates that we've added on," Bob Stegner, Synnex's senior vice president of marketing for North America, told CRN. "We just continue to keep running out of space."

[Related: Q&A: Synnex CEO Talks HP-Aruba Deal, Telco Investment, Server Success]

Synnex's technology services operations in Greenville began in 1998 and has been expanded once to its current footprint of 110,000 square feet. With business continuing to increase, Stegner said, Synnex opted to build another addition onto its existing facility rather than relocate to a new site. Construction is expected to begin in a little over a month.

The distributor today has 1,250 employees based in South Carolina, spanning both its technology services and Concentrix business. The ranks of the new hires will span the gamut, Stegner said, ranging from sales support to senior-level officials.

The new hires also will prioritize supporting new solution provider partners as well as those with successful SMB practices, he said. They will be focusing on particular technology areas and need to be able to work across multiple vendors, according to Stegner.

Although Stegner said cloud, services and VisualSolv (which includes digital signage, ProAV, physical security and videoconferencing) are most in need of additional sales support, the distributor's GovSolv unit might also get some more salespeople, particularly around Google Chrome offerings.

Portsmouth Computer Group (PCG), a Synnex partner based in Portsmouth, N.H., recently started practices in ProAV and digital signage to address growing end-user interest, according to company President David Hodgdon. PCG has started to resell Sonos products to clients looking for additional resources for internal training.

Hodgdon said he hopes the additional staff will lead to even quicker response times and more support.

"They [Synnex] are seeing a demand and want to capture part of that market," Hodgdon said.

Mark Penner, owner of Winnipeg, Canada-based solution provider Powerline Computers, said he thinks Synnex is making the right call to increase its staffing, particularly when it comes to digital signage.

"I'm happy to hear they're ramping up," Penner said.

PUBLISHED APRIL 23, 2015