01732 759725 DISTRIBUTION 34 Ingram Micro is promising channel partners in the UK an easier, unified customer experience with the launch of the machine learning-powered Xvantage platform Introducing Xvantage path of old, with partners having to buy different components from different systems, Xvantage offers the convenience of a unified ‘single pane of glass’ that allows partners to look at everything – hardware, software, cloud, subscriptions, services – through one platform and create quotes and orders combining multiple technologies. This simpler path to purchase is backed by high levels of automation, real-time 24 x 7 insights and personalisation familiar to users of Netflix and other consumer platforms, such as proactive product recommendations based on past purchases and trending products. The combination of Xvantage’s advanced capabilities and clear, intuitive interface is designed to reduce the amount of time partners spend tracking deliveries, managing subscriptions and carrying out other routine processes – some early adopters report time savings of as much as 50 per cent – while also making it easier for partners to build solutions that, in Ingram Micro’s experience, typically bring together six complementary products and services. Optimised for solutions Sanjib Sahoo, Ingram Micro Executive Vice President and Global Chief Digital Officer has been spearheading the development of Xvantage since joining the distributor 18 months ago. He says that the ease with which technologies can be combined through the platform is a major benefit at a time when Ingram Micro, channel partners and end-users are prioritising solutions. “Everyone is looking at solutions. So, the question for us is how can we make solutions selling much easier through a dashboard? How can we make meaningful solutions that are powered by data and machine learning and give them to our channel partners in a more seamless way? “Today, bringing together hardware, cloud, services is a very asymmetric process; it's very disjointed. You buy cloud a certain way; you buy services, a different way; you buy hardware a different way. For example, you can track hardware, but can you track cloud? It is a different experience, with provisioning and subscription management. How do you conjoin all these experience through one platform to make it easy and intuitive for channel partners?” Self-learning platform Because the platform is self-learning, it is continuously refining and enhancing its recommendations and insights. At the same time, Ingram Micro development teams are all the time adding new features and functionality. “When we started, we were bringing in new capabilities every two weeks. Now, we do it every week. We are constantly adding and enriching Xvantage’s capabilities,” Sahoo explained. “Over time we will look at how we can make interactions even more meaningful, for example with realtime dynamic insights. Today, we have static insights that don’t change in realtime. An example on Netflix would be 56 per cent of people liked this movie. Now, imagine I am watching a movie and the platform says 24 people are watching this movie right now and 12 people are liking. That is dynamic insight, and over time we will bring that in, but it is a journey.” Sabine Howest, Senior Vice President, Global Digital Operations, adds that in the future there will also be more scope for partners to integrate their own solutions into the platform and to access a community of experts. “We do see an advantage, particularly around services, of using this as an ecosystem for partners as well. Because they can't do everything themselves, they're not able to be a specialist in every single field, we can bring together a community for them to help each other. They’re asking for the ability to add their own services and they’re asking with whom can I partner in order to fulfil my end-users’ total solution. Xvantage should become an ecosystem for them as well.” www.ingrammicro.co.uk Xvantage was launched in North America last September and is now active in 12 countries including the UK where it is already being used by 730 channel partners. The platform is being introduced in phases over the next few months, but by the end of Q2 it will be the sole way for partners to interface with Ingram Micro online. For now, Xvantage is limited to hardware, including quoting, billing, subscriptions and renewals, but there are links to Ingram Micro’s Cloud Marketplace, which will become redundant when cloud solutions and services are fully integrated into the platform in the next few weeks. All partners (active and dormant) are expected to move to it before Ingram Micro retires its old systems in Q2. In addition to Xvantage for Partners and Xvantage for Associates, which Ingram Micro uses internally, it will soon be introducing Xvantage for Vendors, creating a complete ecosystem that will enable partners, vendors and the distributor’s own employees to interact with one another through the platform. Consumerising distribution CEO Paul Bay said: “We’re going to consumerise distribution, remove a bunch of friction and accelerate value for our customers and our vendor partners. The net of it is we really want to make it easier to do business with us.” Instead of the disjointed procurement When we started, we were bringing in new capabilities every two weeks. Now, we do it every week. We are constantly adding and enriching Xvantage’s capabilities Sanjib Sahoo Matthew Sanderson
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