‘The acquisition of CX Effect significantly expands our portfolio by incorporating over 40 new suppliers,’ says Drew Lydecker, co-founder and president of Avant. ‘This accelerates Avant’s success as we continue to address the rapidly growing cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and AI markets.’

Avant has acquired technology distributor CX Effect in a move to grow its business, sales and service opportunities around customer experience and AI.

“The acquisition of CX Effect significantly expands our portfolio by incorporating over 40 new suppliers,” Drew Lydecker, co-founder and president of Chicago-based distributor Avant, told CRN in an email. “This accelerates Avant’s success as we continue to address the rapidly growing cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and AI markets. Further, CX Effect has been expanding its offerings with solution-specific CX and AI providers for three years now, a process that involves extensive work in building channel relationships and sales enablement programs.”

The number of employees involved and the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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CX Effect’s more than 40 CX and AI vendor partnerships and sales enablement capabilities, combined with Avant’s bench of sales engineers and resources, create an expanded portfolio of CX and AI vendors to boost solution providers’ role of trusted advisors.

“This acquisition will immediately enable our Trusted Advisor channel to pursue and win more opportunities,” Lydecker said. “Every dollar that shifts from contact center labor to technology spending represents a recurring revenue opportunity for Trusted Advisors.”

Andrew Pryfogle, founder and CEO of CX Effect, will stay on and focus on market development, uncovering ways to enhance Trusted Advisor training and sales enablement. CX Effect CRO Bob Maute will also stay on and focus on vendor business development.

Avant plans to integrate CX’s proven CX and AI training and sales enablement capabilities into its programs and Pathfinder platform.

“No one is even close to having the talented bench and portfolio Avant now has in this space around security, connectivity, CX and AI,” Pryfogle said in a statement. “We are thrilled to join the Avant team and create a limitless, next-gen [distributor] focused on helping our Trusted Advisors map out how to use these transformative technologies to make a difference in their business, as well as their customers.”

Lydecker said Avant has been known for its channel sales enablement and training resources, igniting sales with each big technology wave.

“Now our focus is on accelerating channel sales within the explosive AI and customer experience market,” he said. “Combining CX Effect’s extensive CX and AI sales skills and training programs with our own, we now have the deepest bench of sales support and enablement resources in this explosive market.”