Ingram Micro CEO Greg Spierkel

CHICAGO – Ingram Micro CEO Greg Spierkel wants the distributor to become “more solutions oriented,” he told attendees during the kickoff of the 2011 VentureTech Network Spring Invitational here.

Spierkel said that Ingram already does a lot to support resellers in vertical markets and the data centre, with technical skills and configuration capabilities, but that the capabilities the distributor delivers today “are not rich enough.

“We’re already doing several billion dollars of business” in this space, Spierkel told attendees. “But we believe it should eclipse $10 billion.”

The distributor already has configuration capabilities around the world and has built up significant services practices under the Seismic and Ingram Micro Services Network brands, among others.

Spierkel offered attendees a rosy evaluation of the technology industry in general and Ingram’s performance within it. Last year, IT growth made its way to $1.6 trillion on its way to $1.8 trillion by 2014, and Ingram grew at 18 per cent, four percentage points ahead of the average in the industry.

“It’s important for us to consistently grow at or faster than the overall IT market,” Spierkel said.

And the VentureTech community is growing faster than Ingram itself. Kicking off the session, John Fago, senior director of channel marketing at Ingram Micro, said the group’s collective revenues with Ingram were up 22 per cent over for 2010 compared to 2009.

The chief executive identified a number of other priorities during his presentation as well, including the company’s expanding data centre/point-of-sale business, which now represents between $600 and $700 million in business for Ingram across a number of countries around the world.

Mobility is also a key focus, and Spierkel said Ingram is “signing up as many vendors as we can” when it comes to smartphones, PDAs and tablet devices, as well as the applications that can run on them and manage them and the accessories that are typically sold with the devices.

The distributor, he said, is investing heavily in improving billing, authorization and management of annuity services as part of its continuing pushes on the cloud and managed services. “We are investing so we can play a key role with the vendors looking to reach the SMB market through you and through us,” he said.

He also detailed the work of CIO Mario Leone, who’s about one third of the way through an ERP system upgrade and is rolling out a new Ingram Web presence with expanded capabilities around the world.

Through all the changes, he stressed that the distributor must remain its focus on its customers in the channel, and specifically on the VTN community members and their needs.

“Hold our feet to the fire,” Spierkel challenged VTN members. “If you don’t think we’re doing a good job or if there’s something we could do better, we need to know.”