Ingram Micro’s Robinson: ‘We Found New Avenues Of Profitable Growth’

‘Together we met adversity head on, we accelerated digital transformation [and] we accelerated hybrid work environments not just for our customers but for ourselves,’ says Kirk Robinson, executive vice president and president, North America.

The best avenue for growth and to drive value for partners is to be 100 percent partner-focused, according to Kirk Robinson, executive vice president and president, North America, for Ingram Micro.

“We in the Ingram family firmly believe that the way to win in this channel is to be completely customer-obsessed,” Robinson said, referring to the distributor’s partners. Robinson was speaking at this week’s IngramONE conference in Orlando, Fla., which hosted 1,300 attendees.

To deliver more value to partners, Ingram Micro’s engineers have more than 11,000 certifications combined, he said. And providing the best experience for partners comes from always listening to their needs and wants.

[Related: Ingram Micro Executive On How To Evaluate Your Digital Fitness]

Even through a global pandemic, supply chain constraints, geopolitical tension and inflation, Ingram Micro “put up two of the best years in the company‘s history,” he said.

“Together we met adversity head on, we accelerated digital transformation [and] we accelerated hybrid work environments not just for our customers but for ourselves,” he said. “We found new avenues of profitable growth.”

And now, with talks of an economic downturn, Robinson believes the IT indsutry without a doubt will weather the storm.

He said Gartner predicts 2023 IT global spending will hit $4.6 trillion, which is 5 percent growth year over year.

“If you listen to the tech analysts, they‘re all saying that IT spending is recession-proof,” he said. “They’re saying investing in technology is widely considered a business driver.”

And the distributor’s new Xvantage platform is helping partners more quickly and efficiently deliver value to their customers.

Through automation intelligence and machine learning, Xvantage, which launched in September, provides a personalized experience with data insight tailored to each of Ingram Micro’s partners. That’s on top of the real-time transactional benefits such as up-to-the-minute order status, tracking, renewals, subscription billing and real-time customer service capabilities.

“You want us to take the complexity out of your business and provide the right services at the right time to help you run your business, grow faster and do more for your customers,” he said.

To date, more than 40,000 partners have on-boarded to Xvantage.

Time is valuable, Robinson said, so Ingram Micro is automating as many processes as it can.

Mark Westacott, head of sales at Fargo, N.D.-based MSP ReadiTech, said he agrees with Robinson’s sentiment about the distributor focusing more on partners.

This was my second ONE event—the last one was three years ago—and I think they’ve taken it to the next level,” he told CRN.