Synnex Varnex Community Grows As Relationships Remain Front And Center

Synnex's Varnex peer-to-peer community of solution providers is continuing to grow in membership and in the revenue it drives through partners, and it is continuing to bring partners new offerings to grow their business.

That's the message from Steve Jow (pictured), senior vice president of sales for the Fremont, Calif.-based distributor, who Thursday opened its Synnex Varnex 2018 conference in Desert Springs, Calif.

Jow said that Synnex as a whole is seeing good overall growth, particularly since it has finished the integration of its Westcon Americas acquisition.

[Related: Synnex To Acquire Convergys In $2.4B Deal]

With the acquisition, Synnex gained a strong skill set in several key technologies, particularly in security and communications, Jow said.

"One plus one equals three," he said. "The opportunities are huge. Not just with enterprises, but with companies of any size."

Jow also said Synnex is looking forward to big things from the $2.4 billion acquisition of Convergys by Synnex's Concentrix division. That deal, unveiled in June, closed in October. "That gives us a really good BPO [business process outsourcing] business," he said.

The Varnex community has 351 channel partner members, including 31 who joined in 2018. They have accounted for $1.3 billion in Synnex revenue so far this year, which is up about 20 percent over the previous year, he said.

Bob Stegner, senior vice president of marketing at Synnex, told CRN that he has been making a number of changes to how Synnex works with Varnex.

For instance, Stegner said he is working to bring new capabilities such as a VisualSolv offering, which focuses on audio-visual and digital signage solutions, to Varnex members where they not only have access to the technology but also the benefits of being a Varnex member including access to special financing programs.

Mobility, cloud and the Internet of Things are becoming the biggest hot spots for Varnex members, Stegner said.

"And not just because that's what the trend is now," he said. "It's that, the offerings we have now, I can basically tweak them and get the Varnex members involved and help them get into that business pretty much seamlessly."

Synnex Varnex is important to solution providers, many of whom are leery of investing in new technologies without an order in hand, Stegner said. "We're able to help them actually go after the orders," he said. "To be proactive and bring in additional business."

Synnex Varnex members said that while the growth of the community in terms of membership and revenue is important, the real reason for joining Varnex and attending the conference is the relationships members have built with each other over time.

It's the networking that is important, said Frank Arndt, president of myITsource, a Brandon, Manitoba-based solution provider and MSP.

"Here, we don't compete with each other," Arndt told CRN. "We help each other."

Jonathan Binkosky, chief operating officer at Audcomp, an Ancaster, Ontario-based solution provider and MSP who has been attending Varnex conferences for a decade, told CRN that rather than looking at products and sales information, attending Varnex is a way to grow his business in other ways.

"Now, I come here and look at other people’s businesses, how they're doing, what they're seeing," Binkosky said. "What's important to us is knowing what is happening with our business. We're here to see what we need to do to transform our business every year because it's hard to keep up with everything."