Bill Brandel on How Partnerships, AI, and Co-Innovation Are Driving Growth in the IT Channel

Hey everybody. We're at Ingram Micro One. We're talking innovation with my good friend Bill here.

How you doing Bill? What's Going on Mike? Good to see you.

Good to See you. One of the things that's come up at the show is there, we're talking to the partners about becoming more of business advisors rather than just technology advisors. And for years we told everybody that they were gonna be a trusted technology advisor.

What does it mean to be a business advisor? When and how does that transition them, the way partners engage with their customers? Absolutely.

You know, that's a great question, Mike. And you know, this, this industry, if it's one thing, it's always evolving and, you know, when you think about technical advisor versus business advisor, right? I think today it's more around business outcomes.

Companies are looking for business outcomes. They're looking for ways to differentiate themselves in market. They're looking for ways to be ahead of the competition.

And so it's no longer just about the technology, it's about the overall desire of the organization and where they see themselves going and how they see themselves showing up differentiated from the rest of the field. And so I think being able to have that business conversation around where a company is looking to go, where they see themselves in three to five years, and how they wanna show up to their partners, it's more critical today than ever before. The technology is great and it's required, but it's more than technology.

It's people, it's process, it's how we show up. And I think that's what, what's changed. Does that change any of the business models of the partners?

Am I gonna tie my, uh, revenue to an outcome versus maybe traditional time and labor or some sort of annual per seat fees? Is that gonna change? You know, I think as this industry evolves, everything changes, right?

And I, and I know we're at this, uh, really exciting time in our industry with, you know, AI that we talk about all the time, but that's forcing all of us to rethink how we do things. How do we compensate, how do we look for value and where we can capture value and how we can monetize value. So I do believe it's going to change how companies look at rewards and recognition, how they look at compensation models and how they look to drive value in the interactions they're having with their partners.

Do the partners need to go deeper in the business? And I'm asking this because, yeah, it's one thing to provide, I don't know, an email security service, but it's another thing to go in and understand a workflow that drives revenue and how to optimize it to, you know, create a better bottom line for the customer. So does the partner have to get in there and kinda understand a little bit more about each vertical industry and what those people are doing to apply the tech to that process?

So when you think about, I, I always look at now, the deeper you can get into the process, the more you can understand where can you automate, where can you find efficiencies so that you can free up the rest of the time for your individuals to be doing far more proactive consultative or a more valuable, um, work for the, for the organization versus that transactional. And that sometime cumbersome, you know, operational stuff. Mm-hmm.

So the deeper you get in the business, the more information you will have. Of course, you can't walk down the street these days without somebody leaping out to tell you about their great new AI thing and this show is no different. Um, but to that point, uh, how do you have that conversation with people?

'cause I think on the one hand you've got business executives who think some magical thing is gonna instantly happen and transform the world. And then you've got, uh, some employees maybe who are like, well, this is interesting, but it only, you know, helps me write a better email. But that doesn't really change my world.

Right? How do I kind of navigate that spectrum as a partner and engage those different constituents? That's a great point, Mike.

And, and the thing is, is everybody's gonna be coming at it from a different perspective, right? You have business owners who are trying to understand what does this mean for me? How do I capture the value that this is supposed to provide?

Okay? You have line line workers, folks who are driving different business units within a company who are trying to figure out how can they take advantage to help automate drive efficiency and streamline their go-to-market strategy. And then you have, in some cases, associates are saying, Hey, what does this mean to my job?

And so I think it's really being clear with the message around what you're trying to accomplish, right? I think the focus is automation. And I think if that does free up part of someone's day, you're able to repurpose that individual on a more strategic focus for the business.

I think it's a win-win for everybody. The work that we used to think was valuable because it was very time intensive and it was very transactional, is not necessarily the kind of value we want to create as companies. When we do business together, the value we want to create is a true partnership where we're looking for growth, we're understanding where opportunities lie around the corner, and we're building a strategy to go capture those opportunities.

I think sometimes we get ahead of ourselves a little bit when it comes to emerging technologies like ai. Not a shocker. But, um, are we entering like a new phase here?

'cause we're talking now about agentic AI and it might actually deliver more of the promise that we initially made on the first round of AI with copilots, which, you know, are kind of assistance to people. But gen ai, it feels more like an autonomous process that I'm letting something get automated through. And that's a different mindset and a different way of thinking about a business process.

But is that, like, are we on some sort of arc of a journey here? I mean, agentic AI is truly transforming the way everyone thinks about what they do. And to be able to build an agent that can, that can focus on a specific task or project and actually learn how to make it better and grow an efficiency as it continues to learn and evolve is truly kind of mind boggling when you think about it.

And it's exciting because it opens a door to a ton of possibility. And I really think it's, it, it's only limited to people's imagination right now, really thinking about how they can leverage this technology to get into a business process at every step of the journey and find ways to streamline, automate, and drive efficiency and make a better experience at the end of the day. Mm-hmm.

I sometimes feel like the partners wind up being diplomats within the customers that they service, right? There's a lot of constituencies, sometimes they have competing agendas. And so do the partners, if they're gonna be business advisors, have to kind of get in there and start understanding the dynamics and the relationships between the IT people, the marketing people, and the sales people, which may not always be, you know, in agreement with each other.

In fact, I'd be hard pressed to find an example where everything works, you know, all happy and everybody's working together, uh, in symphony. I think, uh, you're, you're 100% correct in the assumption that companies are going to have different priorities. Different business departments are gonna have different priorities.

And it is critical for business partners to understand every aspect of that, of that organization. How they operate, where is the influence, you know, where is the sphere of influence? How are they able to build trust amongst each one of the constituents?

Because that's the key piece, right? If the, if the organization believes, oh, this guy has always been working with it, they're, they're on the side of it, they're not really thinking about a business outcome, they're not really thinking about how they're driving, uh, efficiency and, and, and cost to serve. You have to be able to show the company that you have an interest in each one of the pillars for their success and how much they play a role in what each other do.

See companies get siloed and they get very defensive over their areas of business. I think we have to all rethink that. And we have to think we're all here for one reason.

We're here to drive one objective, which is the success of an organization. And it takes each of those functional areas to get it done. Each one plays a critical role.

So how do we work closer together? So the business partner has a great opportunity to bridge that gap, help them understand how the work they're doing is going to help everyone in the organization be better and have the company succeed at a higher level than ever before. So they sit in a very unique spot today, more so than ever before.

How should the partners think about their own talent pool to accomplish that goal? And I asked the question because I love the partners, but a lot of them are what I call accidental entrepreneurs that came outta the IT world. And they don't necessarily understand the business side all that well.

Should they go out and recruit people who have business expertise in a vertical, whether it's manufacturing, retail, or whatever it might be? I do believe that would be a great step because if you think about it, if you are, if, if it's not an area where you came from, where you're familiar with all the nuances and, and you want to go, you know, what's the first thing that you do personally in your personal life, right? You go do research and you go figure out what do I need to know before I go make a purchase or go make a decision in my life?

I'm gonna go get information. So I think it's really important for partners to figure out what do they want to do, where do they want to go? Who do they want to be?

And then once they understand their strategy and their plan, then go find the resources required to be able to drive success into that, into that strategy, into that focus. And I think getting people who are experts in the field that you wanna play in is a great step to be able to help you build and shape an organization to support and grow that piece of the business. So what's your best advice to the leaders of these organizations?

How do I have that conversation with my teams in a way that it resonates? 'cause I think a lot of them are also, well frankly, most of the them are so busy putting out fires that they don't have a minute to think about fire prevention. But how do I create that space?

You've gotta set the North star. You've got, as a leader, you've gotta set the direction and you've gotta let people know where you're going and then you have to give them the why. It's one thing to tell people what you're doing, but if you don't tell 'em the why, I think you're gonna lose a lot of the people along the way.

Or you might not get the kind of buy-in that you're looking for. So you have to be able to explain why you're taking the steps you're, you're taking, why you're making the changes you're doing, the, the changes that you're making, and how are you positioning your organization for success, their success so that collectively everybody sees the big picture and they understand what their role is in driving that. I think one of the other bigger challenges here, and it's right here on the show floor, there's so many vendors, so many technologies, so many piece parts that have to go into something to create something that feels like a solution.

How do partners navigate all that? Because it's a little overwhelming, let's be honest. And I'm in tech for 30 years and I find it overwhelming, Right?

I think I'd like to think that's where Ingram comes to play. I really think that that's where we can play a bigger role. And I think it's a role we played for many, many years.

It just continues to get more sophisticated as we go, as technology continues to get more sophisticated. But you know, our job is always to go find the best and the brightest technologies that are entering into our marketplace. We're there to vet those companies out and make sure they're ready for primetime, they're ready to get in the game and help our partners grow their businesses.

And so our job is to help navigate and help our partners navigate that vendor ecosystem to understand how to put together the best case scenario for the customer's exact needs. And I think now we can be very prescriptive and we can get very focused and, and do a great job with a lot of the different players that are in this space. This is a huge market.

It's trillions of dollars of tam. There is a lot to go around. And all of the vendors here know that.

They just wanna know where they can be focused, where they can have the most success and drive value into the equation so that it's a sticky relationship that lasts a test of time. And how does that change their relationship with a distributor? Like you guys are, I'm not even sure you are a distributor anymore 'cause you're so much more than that, but it seems like to me, I look at the portfolio and there's all these professional services now that I can lean on as a partner and I'm kind of just, I don't need to invest in hiring all those people.

I need some, but right. It feels like I can lean pretty heavily on you guys. And has that changed the relationship?

It has. It absolutely has. And it's something that you're gonna see us really double down on in years to come.

So Tim Aman, uh, who recently, uh, rejoined the US business, came over from leading our Australia business, is running our services practice. And I think what he's bringing to the table is a really a, a a, a great tenured approach in this industry. He's got a lot of, uh, learnings from working around the world and I think what he's able to do now is understand what are the solutions and the services that partners are really looking for so that we can make that invest investment proactively.

And partners don't need to do that right outta the gate. They can find opportunities, lean on enger micro, get scale, and then add competencies and capabilities as they choose so they can leverage our experience and expertise as an extension of their business. But then they can grow and add on whenever they're ready.

And our job is to make sure we help them understand that roadmap and we help them understand where the opportunities exist and let 'em capitalize on those opportunities at a very low cost of entry and then continue to grow for profitably. So let me ask you this, what's top of mind for you? And then when you pull into the parking lot in the morning and you're about to go in the office and before everybody disrupts whatever it is you're thinking about, like what are the top two or three things that you're looking at to accomplish and kind of, you know, if you looked at the next year, if they happen, what would be the definition of success?

I will tell you what keeps, what keeps me very, very laser focused right now are the people. Our processes and our system, our platform, those three things, people, process and platform is what I think about every single day. How, how do I leverage the platform, the power of our platform, drive a differentiated experience?

How do I elevate the people in the organization to be that true trusted advisor alongside our partners to help them find growth and scale? And then how do I fix the processes that exist around the ecosystem to make it easier to do business with Ingram and make it more efficient for our partners to serve their customers? If I can do those three things, I think I, I think that's success.

Alright. Hey folks, you heard it here. People process and platform.

The funny thing about that is the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hey buddy, thanks for coming By. Thanks Michael.

We'll be back in a minute.