Larocque’s New Role Hints at More Continental Synnex Strategy

Peter Larocque, president of North American distribution at Synnex.

Peter Larocque, president of North American distribution at Synnex.

Canadian solution providers wondering when some of Synnex’s “Solv” packages will appear in this country have an answer – very soon. And it appears that there will be more help arriving for the Canadian subsidiary and its customers.

At its Varnex Fall Conference in San Diego last week, Synnex announced that Peter Larocque, formerly president of U.S. distribution for the company, had been appointed president of North American distribution. And while it remains clear that Mitchell Martin remains in command as president of Synnex Canada, it certainly appears Synnex is taking a long look at sharing more resources across the 48th parallel.

Bob Stegner, senior vice president of marketing for North America at Synnex, explained that Larocque’s promotion comes at a time when Synnex CEO Kevin Murai is spending a good deal of time working on the company’s acquisition of IBM’s Concentrix business, announced two months ago. The change, Stegner said, will allow Larocque to “free up some U.S. resources to support the Canadian team.”

The first tangible evidence of the change, a trio of the company’s “Solv” practices are debuting, or will soon debut, in Canada, largely using the resources and experiences of offering those packages in the U.S. market.

CloudSolv, the distributor’s cloud software platform, is already in place with Microsoft’s Office 365 on board, and offerings from Symantec and Adobe soon debut. Over the next three to four months, Martin said, the plan is to “really build out the line card” for CloudSolv until it looks more like the roughly 40 offerings currently offered under CloudSolv in the U.S. Plans are already in place to introduce a version of the platform that can be white-labeled as a solution provider’s own cloud marketplace in the latter part of the year.

Up next will be ServiceSolv, a platform for reselling services offered by Synnex, as well as those offered by solution providers. Martin said he expects ServiceSolv – one of the most-requested practices amongst Canadian solution providers – to launch in the next 90 days. Because the model for ServiceSolv relies on both Synnex and third parties for delivering services solution providers can resell, the distributor has to extend relationship or find new outsourcing partners to deliver some of the services offered under ServiceSolv in Canada. One source of talent for such services: the distributor’s own signature SMB community.

“We’re encouraging Varnex members to step forward with services they can put into [ServiceSolv,]” Martin said.

And, as covered on ChannelBuzz.ca last week, the distributor is well underway to introducing its MobilitySolv practice here in Canada, an effort being spearheaded by Synnex global mobility chief Adnon Dow.

Stegner also hinted at interested in bringing the company’s government-focused GovSolv practice to Canada, and said that the Varnex leadership inside Synnex is getting additional support from its U.S. counterparts.

“[Canada has] already stacked up where they want help, and we’ve been able to enhance communications,” Stegner said. “The reality is that I have more resources in the U.S. that I can throw at Canada to help them.”

Martin said that because market, culture, and vendor sets are fairly similar across the border, it makes sense to approach things at a North American level, thought carefully tailored to the Canadian market where necessary, “but that will become more the exception than the rule.” Quality control in bringing the new offerings to Canada, he said, will be key.

“We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin, but we still want to offer as much as [Synnex] U.S. offers,” Martin said.