Tech Data Canada’s TechSelect program has grown in the number of channel partners and in revenue.
The group of 50 solution providers, which just concluded its Canadian conference in Calgary, has grown in revenue by 30 per cent year over year, said distributor president Rick Reid.
There are now channel partner members in 90 different locations across Canada, from St. John’s to Vancouver.
“This is a great cross-section of solution providers, and most of them are here today, Reid said from Calagry. “They exceeded our growth throughout the quarter.”
The three-day TechSelect conference happens twice a year. One is a combined U.S. and Canadian effort, while this past conference is all Canadian.
Member companies share best practices and meet with the Tech Data Canada’s top brass, as well as conduct advisory council meetings.
The guest speaker at this year’s conference was consultant David Russell, author of Success With People who spoke on how to hire and retain the best staff.
A number of vendors contributed as well, with updates on channel strategy and new products. This year Lexmark Canada, Lenovo Canada, APC, HP Canada, Trend Micro, McAfee, Microsoft, Nortel, IBM, Cisco and IBM Software attended the conference.
Reid said that the highlight of the conference was Russell’s keynote address to the membership.
“Russell put all of the members through an insight program. Members filled out a questionnaire and got a package on their entire make-up — their strengths and weaknesses and how you relate to someone who is not like you. The membership said they were going to take this program and bring it to the balance of its own employee base,” Reid said.
He added that a close second to Russell was the co-operation between the members.
“Once they hear someone’s best practice, their eyes light up because it is coming from a peer, and no amount of consultation can do that. These are small businessmen and women who do not have the time to learn how to be small businessmen and women. They learn from each other,” Reid said.
As far as the TechSelect program, Reid said the advisory council continues to re-engineer and revamp it to make it better. “The membership does this alone to determine what else can benefit them. It is very positive and constructive, and I would tell you this group of resellers enjoys learning from each other. This is the purpose of this event to share all kinds of examples,” he said.
Tech Data Canada provides the members with a Web site to access the names of the TechSelect members. Usually these members would share an authorization if one did not have it in their area, or help a customer in a different location.
“I would say this group over all represents smaller revenues than the U.S. (TechSelect group),” said Reid. “Small in the in U.S. is bigger than in Canada and the community in the U.S. is more regional, but bigger. We got a good cross-section here, and we are fortunate that some are of great size. Three or four of them made CDN’s Top 100 Solution Provider list.”
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