‘We want to, as a distributor, be able to mask some of the complexity and take our ability to invest in these areas to the partners so they can access all the tools and resources, but more importantly, see how we’ve been able to monetize AI,’ Reyna Thompson, TD Synnex’s new North America president, tells CRN.

IT distribution giant TD Synnex last week held its annual TD Synnex Inspire conference, and it quickly became clear that its primary focus was on AI and how to help solution providers get started with the technology.

From keynotes to presentations from vendor partners such as Nvidia and Snapdragon to the introduction of the distributor’s new AI Infrastructure Business Unit, AI was on top of the agenda for the two-day conference.

Reyna Thompson, who in September became TD Synnex’s new president for North America, told CRN in an exclusive meeting that AI is nothing new for the company.

[Related: TD Synnex’s Incoming CEO Patrick Zammit: ‘AI Is Going To Be Very Pervasive’]

In addition, Thompson said, bringing AI to TD Synnex’s partner community has now become a key focus of the company.

“We’ve been investing in AI for years, and it was the culmination of all that effort that led us to launch our Destination AI program about a year ago,” she said. “We’ve continued to add to that. We’re investing in technical resources. We’re investing in a practice builder program so partners can, at any point of entry, start their AI journey. We’re investing in proof-of-concept labs. We’re investing in in people who can build the ecosystems that surround a lot of those AI places.”

Thompson also talked about how much, or how little, TD Synnex’s strategy is changing with the new top executive team, including not only her new role but that of her new boss, CEO Patrick Zammit. She also discussed the new bets TD Synnex is placing on the future, the importance of increasing its global reach, and the legacy of her predecessor Peter Larocque, who just retired after 41 years with the company.

Thompson lays out the changes in a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with CRN. Here’s what she had to say.

When did you find out that you were going to be taking this new role?

Peter and I have been working on the transition for over a year. I’ve been alongside him, working through that for a while.

What is Peter’s legacy at TD Synnex?

One of our core guiding principles is operational excellence. That I think is a key piece of his legacy. This maniacal focus on customer experience, taking out the friction in the customer experience, innovating with our systems, leveraging our systems to be able to just handle the business better. That’s a significant legacy that he’s left us with. Another thing is, he’s a relationship person. He has a lot of relationships in the channel after 40 years. Peter also has a refuse-to-lose attitude. He just never gives up. So it’s more than just one thing. It’s a number of things that he’s going to leave us with.

The biggest thing is that there’s going to be business continuity. But there’s also an opportunity to capture some of the innovation that’s going on in the market, some of the market trends, do things differently. It’s going to force us to think differently. And

he’ll be in an advisory role focused in a few areas, public sector being one of

them.

On the non-business side, a big thing is he launched the ‘Share The Magic’ program for us 14 years ago. Now it’s national, and everybody, all the offices, raise money for their local charities in a slightly different way. But the cumulative amount of money that we’ve been able to give back, $25 million, I credit Peter for really driving that. We’re going to continue to drive that forward.

So now here you are now at the top of TD Synnex North America business. Let’s talk a little bit about that business. What are you seeing as you look, first of all, at the competitive landscape?

I think we’re all trying to understand what’s next. What’s the bet that we all want to capture. Is it cloud? Is it the marketplace? Is it a partner set like the MSPs? There’s a lot of opportunities in front of all of us, and we’re all just trying to see what’s the winning bet. And partners want to know that too. How can we, with the lens we have, help them navigate some of those opportunities in a better way?

If you look at the last 40 years, there are huge inflection points. There is a partner that I recently spoke with who said they have to invent themselves every 18 months. That’s how fast the market is moving. And so we see it as our job to help in that process.

What is TD Synnex doing to stand out in terms of trying to grab those next bets in North America?

There are three key things I feel we are going to stick to. The first is this focus on operational excellence, making sure that we drive automation and that we drive efficiency. I mean, those are table stakes as a distributor. We’re also trying to leverage technology to be able to do that and automate some of the processes. A lot of our manufacturers are asking for that help as well. The second is intelligent automation, where manufacturers can drive their quotes through the system, and partners can have access to it, and it just flows naturally. We want to grow ahead of the market in every category that we participate in and, to do that, we’ve got to constantly be innovating, constantly be building out services, and constantly be building out tools and programs. And so that thirst to innovate along with operational excellence are going to be very important. But we can’t forget the people aspect of it. That’s the third thing, this winning together mentality, this need to continue to collaborate, maybe collaborate in different ways through communities, digitally, at events. That’s not going to go away. AI can do some of that. But at the end of the day, this is a people business.

You report directly to CEO Patrick Zammit (pictured). You are new in this role, and Patrick’s new in his role. Has there been a change at TD Synnex from what you see working with Patrick and what you saw working with former CEO Rich Hume?

There are certain things that are priorities of the business, like effective planning and forward-looking. I’ve done that with Peter. I’ve done that with Rich. We’re doing that with Patrick. We’ve done that with all the leaders. It’s at the core of our fabric. So from that standpoint, it’s not a change. I think what Patrick brings to the table is this global mindset, globalizing and scaling a lot of our tools and a lot of our relationships and a lot of our capabilities so we can take advantage of it across the regions.

We’ve been first with a lot of different programs and tools over the years, and so that desire to reinvent, that desire to invest in areas that maybe are not necessarily proven, will continue.

You’re the head of North American business for TD Synnex. What does having a global mindset bring to its North American business?

In a lot of instances, we have global partners and partners where we have a U.S. relationship, and they want to leverage us in other regions, and rely and count on the same level of support, count on the same execution of contracts, count on having the same access to the same tools and specialized resources. And so it’s very important that we consider and connect to our other regions where it makes sense. So from that standpoint, our regions share best practices, and we’ll continue to do that. We’ve got good relationships across the regions.

The big focus at TD Synnex Inspire 2024, like with practically every event nowadays, was AI. What are some things that TD Synnex as a distributor brings to partners looking to invest in AI?

The biggest thing that we can bring partners, and what partners are asking us to do, is help them figure out how to monetize AI, because until this point, AI has been perceived as a trend that’s not necessarily tangible to many partners. Some have figured it out through their relationships, but there are many partners trying to figure out what this thing is about. And that’s what we want to bring to the table. We want to, as a distributor, be able to mask some of the complexity and take our ability to invest in these areas to the partners so they can access all the tools and resources, but more importantly, see how we’ve been able to monetize AI. I can point to 50 different sales plays that we’ve actually done where we’ve identified a pain point, we’ve identified a vertical, and we have sold the product, and that’s going to be very important. You saw everyone talk about AI. Our focus is monetizing AI. It’s selling products, selling solutions, selling services.

What kind of investment has TD Synnex actually made in developing AI competencies for partners and in solutions that partners can take to their customers?

Quite a bit of investment. We’ve been investing in AI for years, and it was the culmination of all that effort that led us to launch our Destination AI program about a year ago. We’ve continued to add to that. We’re investing in technical resources. We’re investing in a practice builder program so partners can, at any point of entry, start their AI journey. We’re investing in proof-of-concept labs. We’re investing in people who can build the ecosystems that surround a lot of those AI places. So there is a lot of investment that we’re making because some partners are not able to [on their own]. In the spirit of being able to operate as an extension of a partner’s organization, we built the AI CoE [Center of Excellence].

Is there a dollar value that you could put on that investment?

Millions. Multiple millions.

How important is it for a distributor like TD Synnex to bring AI education and training to solution providers?

It’s incredibly important because what the market is looking for is very definitive ways of selling AI. And so we offer education on AI from the very basic to the advanced that leans on some of these different sales plays and how to enable a partner for these sales plays. Education is the cornerstone of what we’re putting forward for partners to access, and it’s education in a lot of different ways. Again, it’s the AI industry, but it’s also the particular solutions that they want to deploy. It’s also offering certification with some of the key OEM partnerships, and especially when we’re talking about the ISV ecosystem that we’re building. And I would argue that we’ve got a significant line card of ISVs that surrounds some of those major plays that takes a lot of education. It can be quite complicated.

If a solution provider comes to TD Synnex looking to get started with AI, what is the entry point for them?

Well, one thing we launched at TD Synnex Inspire is our new AI Infrastructure Business Unit. This is where we’re assembling all things AI in one centralized place, from the products and solutions to the CoE that surrounds AI. So I would point them immediately to our solutions architects, and we’d start with identifying and understanding the solution provider’s ecosystem and the markets they sell in, and then educate them on all our sales plays. And from there, the business unit launches them into a number of different things, either educating them on the sales plays, or getting their certifications, or introducing them to the OEM relationships, or we’re giving them access to products they could start getting their hands on and running some of their own demos and proofs of concept. It’s a very rich and deep level of expertise.