Tech Data is on a quest to train up more IT partners in smart meeting rooms, as businesses globally rethink their spaces.
Companies in many countries are now seeing employees back in the office at least some of the time, with hybrid working now becoming a reality as some employees demand more flexibility.
Meanwhile, many meeting spaces are in need of upgrading to keep up with the collaboration tools that have been adopted during the remote working periods of the last 18 months.
For SMBs in particular, this will often happen with the assistance of a partner, but many channel firms from a traditional IT background haven’t typically played in this space.
It is for this reason that Tech Data’s Maverick AV division has launched a campaign to get partners up to speed, Business Unit Director Anna-Marie Constantinou told UC Today.
“If you go back 18 months or two years, the belief that AV and IT were converging was there, but we have seen a huge acceleration of that,” she said.
“So this is coming from conversations with our vendors and partners where we hear that the meeting room is no longer a mysterious space that can only be managed by specialist AV partners.
“We’re not saying that there is no space for AV specialists – there absolutely is – but this is also a huge requirement for IT partners to understand AV and UC platforms.
“What we’re looking to do is support those IT partners with the confidence and training they need to have better conversations with their customers.”
Maverick is giving resellers end-to-end support to build a practice in meeting room solutions, including onboarding to vendor programmes, sales training and enablement, marketing-as-a-service, and assistance with installation.
Constantinou said installation services are in particular demand in the channel at the moment.
“Installation services are of interest,” she said. “Partners want to sell a product and then have us come and install it.
“I think that will change over time as the resellers get more confident with the products and take that on themselves, but at the moment many are new in the space, and they’re interested in having a third party do it for them.
“We can do the configuration in Magna Park and then bundle the products up that it all arrives on site with everything the reseller needs for the meeting room.”
