By: Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA
Less than one hour into the evening welcome reception at ScanSource’s 2024 Partner First Conference, I heard a phrase that turned out to be the unofficial theme of the day-and-a-half event: embrace the complexity.
The next morning, just minutes into his opening statement at General Session, Tony Sorrentino, President of the distributor’s North American Specialty Segment, echoed that sentiment. “I’m excited to see a lot of you getting outside your comfort zone,” he said to a room of 800+ VARs, ISVs, vendors, and ScanSource staffers. “We’re going to wrap more services around the hardware sale to bring more value and revenue opportunities to you.”
Sorrentino then highlighted growth opportunities in mobility, payments, physical security, networking, communications, and POS. ScanSource SVPs Casey Huffling and Brian Cuppett took things a step further to show where ScanSource partners are winning:
- Digitization initiatives utilizing mobility
- ESL (Electronic Shelf Labeling)
- Self-service
- Payments beyond terminals
- Inventory visibility through RFID track and traceability
- Cloud calling and subscriptions
- Cybersecurity
“We’ve seen that partners who expand into new areas grow 2x compared with the partners who stay in their lane,” Cuppett said.
Solution providers had barely finished breakfast, and already they had a full menu of opportunities to pursue.
Fast forward to the end of the conference, held Aug. 19-20 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Greenville, SC. (Don’t worry – this blog post isn’t wrapping up yet. I’ll share more insights from Partner First in a moment.) I sat down with ScanSource VP Brenda McCurry for her take on the ever-changing retail IT channel.
“We’ve seen the complexity increase ever since POS and payments merged together,” she said. “The VAR, the ISV, the processor, and the hardware all converge and need to work together to serve the end user merchant. Our challenge is, how do we make that simple?”
Throughout the event, ScanSource shared details about how they’ve revamped their organization to guide their solution provider partners. There was little talk of logistics during the conference; ScanSource’s shift to a services-first model was apparent. (ScanSource’s acquisitions this month of tech advisor Resourcive and managed connectivity provider Advantix and its formation of a new Integrated Solutions and Services (ISS) Group only adds more fuel to that approach.)
From my perspective, the onus is on VARs, MSPs, and ISVs to take advantage of what ScanSource and other distributors and vendors are offering – and to embrace the complexity. Based on what I saw and heard at Partner First and my other channel travels, I have no doubt our community is up to the challenge.
Both ScanSource and RSPA frequently see new players entering our ecosystem (most of them leading with a niche software application and niche vertical focus), and many longtime VARs have adapted their business to keep pace with the rate of change.
The most successful solution providers are focusing their organizations to maximize their business value, expand their offering set, and increase their recurring revenue. Closing the next deal is great, but its result is only short-term success.
“We’re here to play the long game,” Sorrentino said. “Recurring revenue will drive a higher value to your business over time, and we want to help you do that. The investments we’re making today we hope will pay off for you for years to come.”
“If You’re Not Changing, You’re Not Making More Money”
I captured as many Partner First quotes and insights as my hand could write (and my thumbs could type) during the event:
- “Some don’t believe in the ability of the channel to change. We do. … If you’re not changing, you’re not making more money.” ScanSource Chair & CEO Mike Baur
- “Partner often and partner well – even if you’re just getting a small part of the pie.” Baur
- “To play this game, we have to find opportunities no one else has done before.” Baur
- “We’ve shifted from ‘payments enablement’ to ‘payments experience.’ Payments is now built into the overall customer experience. It’s not just the end of the process anymore. The new payments experience is the new customer expectation.” ScanSource’s Kevin Kent and Justin Price
- “If retail was a person, it would have aged 50 years in the past five. Today we expect infinite selection of product with no lead time. Omnichannel causes huge complexity for retailers.” Zebra’s Yogesh Kulkarni during his presentation “Advancements in Retail Modernization with AI”
- “It’s time to bring AI to the table. It’s just as smart as any other colleague already sitting at the table.” Kulkarni
- “Physical security is more than a security solution. It’s another data collection end point. The data you gather from the cameras can lead to improved store optimization, customer experience, customer insights, and more.” Huffling
- “Payments never gets easier. We’re seeing more questions about apps for SMBs, alternative and advanced payment methods, soft POS, and e-receipts.” Ingenico’s Tony Walsh
Leadership Panel: “Follow Through Is Boring But Essential”
Most distributor conferences have moved away from all breakout sessions being a product showcase which opens the opportunity for higher-level business conversations. ScanSource hosted a leadership panel featuring RSPA members Craig Witsoe of Elo, Peter Stewart of Ingenico, Jenny Krummenacher of Zebra, Juan Carlos Castillo of Epson, and Georgina Lamb of Honeywell.
Among their insights that stood out to me were:
- The most valuable gift a leader can give is their time
- Create in your company an environment for mentorship and the opportunity to work on interesting projects
- Transparency is extremely important in an organization, and it’s driven by trust
- You need a north start to guide your decisions
- Leaders have to communicate differently to reach different people
- Follow through is boring but essential
