LAS VEGAS – Synnex CEO Kevin Murai kicked off the fall gathering of the distributor’s Varnex reseller community by telling members that the distributor is working to produce “more meat on the bone” for resellers through focused investments.

That doesn’t necessarily mean better product margins – there’s no magic wand that can be waved there to restore lusty hardware profits, but Murai did outline a strategy that he believes will allow resellers to get deep on key vertical opportunities as well as build practices in hot new areas of technologies that will result in better profitability for all involved.

Murai joined the other big distributors in proclaiming that the broadline distribution model of old has been superseded by “solutions-driven distribution” with a focus on adding deeper business capabilities.

Even as he admitted that shipping products and providing financing are still the majority of the business, he stressed the role Synnex is playing in identifying future opportunities and helping solution providers size them up and try them on.

“We continue to go down this path, we continue to make these investments, and we continue to put even more meat on the bone,” he said.

The strategy has two prongs, Murrai said. First, the distributor is moving to help provide depth on key verticals, helping resellers find the right software and services to go with the hardware they’re selling, as well as building a deeper understanding of the business challenges in those key verticals.

And secondly, Synnex is adding more of what it calls “technology platforms” – dedicated practices that aim to make it easier for VARs to build their business in major opportunities like the cloud, managed services, and managed print, as well as tools that allow VARs to do business processes, such as renewals, more easily.

Those technology platforms are represented by a series of “Solv” initiatives – ServiceSolv, RenewSolv, PrintSolv, CloudSolv and the like that make up a big part of the distributor’s differentiation when it comes to solutions focus.

Murai also sought to reassure attendees concerned about the economic situation, especially in light of the European debt situation. Although he admitted it’s “nothing but bad news out there,” and “volatile like I’ve never seen at any point in time before,” he noted that the market is still overall fairly stable and in some areas even growing.

IT’s strategic advantage – and in particular its ability to help companies drive productivity gains, continue to serve it well, he suggested, giving VARs the opportunity to grow.

In particular, he said the rapidly-expanding field of storage, as well as servers and tablets continue to be bright spots and likely will be for the foreseeable future.