TD SYNNEX Canada’s Chris Fabes sees near-term growth in cloud, cybersecurity and AI economics

Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In the Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor at ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show.When I last spoke to Chris Fabes back in August, he was just getting settled into his new role as president of TD SYNNEX Canada. At the time, he was embarking on a listening tour, getting to know the business, its partners, and the opportunities and challenges facing the Canadian channel.

Fast forward about three months, and Fabes has had a chance to put some miles on the odometer, meet with partners across the country, and get a much clearer picture of where the business stands and where he wants to take it.

I caught up with him this week at TD SYNNEX Inspire Canada in Toronto, where the distributor is laying out its vision for helping partners navigate a technology market increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, new consumption models, and the growing importance of delivering business outcomes rather than simply selling products.

We discussed what Fabes has learned during his first few months, where he sees the most immediate growth opportunities for Canadian partners, and how TD SYNNEX is looking to expand its reach into new technologies and markets.

We also talked about what the recently announced acquisition of BlueStar could mean for the Canadian business, the company’s significant investment in a new distribution facility in Caledon, Ontario, and the economics of AI.

And we wrapped up with a look at how Fabes is putting AI to work in his own role, including an agent he built to keep him on top of the business.

Let’s get right into it, my chat with Fabes.

Robert Dutt: Chris, thanks for taking the time. I know it’s obviously a busy day here, but your first Inspire running the show here.

Chris Fabes: Yeah, thanks for being here. It’s been a big couple of days between today and yesterday. Well received, exciting, definitely a different position for me to be in, standing on the stage versus looking at the stage.

Robert Dutt: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was really good.

When we spoke back in August, you were just getting started in the role. You were really fresh into what you talked about: listening, learning, understanding the business, understanding what partners want.

You’ve now spent about 90 days, I’m sure, travelling across Canada a whole lot, talking to partners, talking to your teammates. What have you learned that you didn’t know coming into the job? And has anything surprised you enough to change your thinking about where things are at, or where they’re going, for TD SYNNEX Canada or for the Canadian channel at large?

Chris Fabes: So you’re right. I’ve travelled quite a bit, and I did say I wanted to listen. And when we first spoke, it was, I guess, 30 days after. Very, very fresh. I still didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So it’s helped me shape the expectations, the excitement, the angst maybe that some have in terms of everything coming out of the channel expectations. So by having those conversations internally, as well as with our partners and vendors, it’s been great to shape where we’re going.

In terms of things that I would not have known or hadn’t expected, it’s been a pleasant — I’m cautious when I say the word surprise, but I’ll say that — because I’m coming in and I’m learning a lot about what our capabilities are.

And a lot of the conversations or the comments that were being generated from our customers, we’re actually able to fill a lot of those gaps with what we’ve built or what we’re building.

So coming into a business that my engagements in the past were a little bit more traditional in nature, but now seeing how TD SYNNEX is evolving the way that we approach the channel as an orchestrator, there’s so much more outside of the core distribution capabilities that we can offer.

So that has been a very, very pleasant, I guess, enhancement is the best way of saying it, to my view.

Robert Dutt: I guess playing into that, the state of the Canadian business. It’s a strong organization, clearly, but there’s economic uncertainty. We’re in the midst of some significant technology transformations, if you hadn’t noticed.

Chris Fabes: Sure. I don’t know if it would come up.

Robert Dutt: Basically, now that you’ve got a chance to look at things and have those conversations, how would you characterize the state of the business today? Where are you seeing momentum, and where are you hearing from partners that things are a little more challenging?

Chris Fabes: The foundation is absolutely solid. And that has been wonderful to see. Not only foundationally at our core, what we’ve been offering to our partners for decades, but also the plans in place to be able to grow where the market is going.

We talk about the distribution TAM expansion, because there’s a portion of the business in Canada that goes through the channel and there’s a portion that doesn’t.

We have plans to be able to continue to attract additional vendors into the ecosystem, make sure that, as you said, the chaos or the complexity of what’s happening right now — it could be as simple as we understand that these are the technology drivers that our customers are demanding. We need to ensure that we’re ready as a partner, we’ve got those capabilities being built or already built, and we’re having those conversations.

But also, the things that are a little bit more challenging for any one partner to understand, maybe collectively we can figure out together.

So helping our partners understand how to have AI practices built out that focus on outcomes, help them answer their customer questions around sovereignty of data, sovereignty of access, capabilities to expand province through province.

You heard Minister Evan Solomon spoke to us earlier this morning. Just engaging with understanding how we’re building our capabilities and then bringing that to the channel ecosystem, I think that’s going to be so important.

Robert Dutt: There was a lot of focus this morning on some interesting new opportunities, areas that maybe haven‘t traditionally been channel space.

Between you and your team, you talked about defence, robotics, space, energy, agriculture and AI infrastructure, which of course has been the focus for a while for this group.

But that’s a pretty broad range. I’m curious about your thoughts on which of those new growth areas represent the biggest tangible near-term opportunity for Canadian partners, and how you guys see yourselves helping the partners reach that.

Chris Fabes: So in part, some of what you mentioned — space, robotics — those are a little bit more future-leaning.

In the near term, when you look at the spend and the needs of our Canadian customers, you’re looking at more of that software space, the cybersecurity wrap in terms of making sure that our data and our access and our individuals have a fully protected ecosystem.

So software, including cybersecurity, including cloud, and being able to navigate the tokenomics of that conversation, I think is going to be more of that near term.

It doesn’t change the way we look at our core. So we look at our core being endpoint solutions, advanced solutions. But really where we’re seeing the greatest growth happening is within that advanced solutions division.

And that’s where you see cloud. That’s where you see cyber. That’s where you see the advancements in physical AI, more than just the software application, but the combination of the two worlds.

And that’s what requires us to build, sign new contracts, be able to engage and enable our partners to be able to categorize or catalogue those offerings for their customers.

And it becomes very unique and niche based on those verticals. And that’s why I mentioned it. Agriculture needs different technology than a manufacturing sales floor does.

An AI infrastructure buildout that is focused on power and data flow is going to be different than what a retailer might need.

So we’re really trying to get closer to what the end customer requires, align with the partners that serve those end-customer verticals, and then be able to create those threads that our partners can then pull.

So they’re creating those outcomes through a more robust technology stack, which is, I think, what you were asking in terms of where we’re going near term and long term.

Robert Dutt: And I guess that’s where some of the new vendors potentially come in, in terms of folks who round out that story.

Chris Fabes: Absolutely. And there’s viable products coming from vendors that may be a little bit new to the ecosystem every day.

So we need to make sure that we’re looking at what are the products that may be of interest to our partners and customers. How do we bring that into the ecosystem, onboard, enable, activate?

And there’s many, many that are looking for knowledge of how to use the channel. How do I bring my product, instead of talking to every individual end customer, how do I then go and talk to thousands of business partners that we know really, really well, and then scale that model very, very efficiently?

And that’s where that orchestration comes into place that we’ve been talking about.

Robert Dutt: Shawn Ardiel made a point this morning that really connected with me, resonated and made me snicker a little bit: that in the AI era, the unit of value isn’t the product, it’s the outcome, and no single product delivers that whole solution.

Especially coming from distribution, where the language spoken has traditionally been SKUs, that’s a pretty broad change.

I think it’s played into some of your answers already so far. How does that mindset change the role that TD SYNNEX plays in the channel? I suspect it goes back to that orchestrator role that you’ve touched on.

Chris Fabes: It does. It goes to, in part, the budgeting conversation.

So how do I build technology that fits the budget, that’s consistent and predictable? Because you can provide AI solutions and you can overengineer and underestimate the budget very quickly.

But we believe we have visibility across that ecosystem where we can talk to our customers around when does it make sense to have a frontier model or a no-code or a low-code model?

How do we help you build your governance so that your users are applying the right applications and using the right models that effectively meet your budget aspirations?

Part of it is just understanding that complexity, simplifying it.

And as we say, we want to meet our partners where they are. Some are very advanced and some are just getting started. So we have to have that flexibility to go up, down, depending on the conversation and situation.

And that’s where many, many of our customers, to your question, when they hear about Destination AI or they hear about Launchpad, when they can start putting pen to paper, they start saying, “Aha, you’re helping me run my business, you’re helping me bring a full-scale solution to my customers, and you’re showing confidence in the partnership.”

Robert Dutt: Around that whole AI tokenomics and overall economics of AI discussion, you guys have recently launched FinOps Fusion.

Can you share a little bit of what you see the opportunity around that kind of business? It seems to play nicely into what you’re talking about around helping partners understand what model for what solution and getting a grip on the ongoing cost of those on behalf of customers.

Chris Fabes: So FinOps Fusion is a recent announcement for Canada. So I’m not fully read into the exact impacts or how it lands to our customers. So I would suggest that there’s an alternative individual that you’d want to speak to on that.

But what I will say is we have highlighted the promise to many of our partners, and we’ve suggested that they go have conversations with the dedicated teams, because that’s a real critical problem that they’re seeing.

They do not want to overpromise or underpromise and be caught with the gotcha of the budget overages.

So I believe that as we work with our partners, we will provide them with that predictability, the visibility and the management that’s required to have strong conversations.

Robert Dutt: Speaking of new areas of business, the acquisition of BlueStar is interesting because it brings a whole different set of capabilities in mobility, identification, point of sale, the intersection of physical and digital, and a big Canadian presence historically.

What does that acquisition mean to the business here for TD SYNNEX?

Chris Fabes: So the acquisition, it’s only been recently announced. So we’re working through what the next steps might look like. We’ll continue to operate as separate businesses until future decisions are made.

But to your point, there really isn’t much overlap. It really does provide a lot of complementarity.

In talking to some of our partners, when you start looking at the optimization of the technology stacks, the optimization of capital, the optimization of stocking and logistics and the associated services, there’s definitely been early excitement to say, “This is a value-add to our business.”

But it also provides us additional potential access to very specialized markets that, again, are complementary to us.

And to your point, the Canadian individuals with BlueStar, the Canadian locations and their ability to reach those markets, it’s absolutely exciting. And it’s been perceived by our partners very positively, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with the team.

Robert Dutt: I know it’s early days. Not much overlap in terms of technology and vendor lineup, I’d imagine, and probably not as much as one might expect on the partner side.

It potentially brings a new variety of partners, or a new import to a variety of partners, to TD SYNNEX.

Chris Fabes: That’s what we believe.

So it’s been an exciting conversation in terms of not just the product sets or the specialized services, but also the partners in which they would engage with.

There are a lot of — I mentioned complementarity, but there’s also adjacencies and incremental opportunities to be talking with partners, but also specific markets that we may not have otherwise been engaged with.

So as we unwrap this or tease on that thread a little bit more, I can only expect exciting things to come.

Robert Dutt: You talked today about the new 850,000-square-foot facility in Caledon and described Canada as getting some of the most advanced logistics technology first, I imagine by virtue of being the new facility on the block.

I understand that’s not coming online for a year or more yet, but what does the investment say about, A, the commitment to Canada, and what does it change for your partners when it does come online?

Chris Fabes: So it’s early days. We expect this to come online mid-2028.

We’re definitely excited in terms of size, capabilities of the technology that we’ll be applying.

It provides us with expanded capabilities nationwide. And I think there’s an excitement around scale, cost to serve, and looking at just leaning into the Canadian economy.

I think it’s a meaningful investment that we’re making. I think it gives us an edge in terms of what we do, but also more specifically what we’ve been discussing.

It provides us the ability to look forward and ask ourselves the questions: what can this provide us the capability of doing in the future?

So it’s exciting, but I can tell you that as we come back together in the future, we’ll have more details in terms of exactly how it’s going to land, what it’s going to mean for our partners and our customers in Canada.

But I’m hoping that it’s very exciting to hear that we are investing and we’re looking to lean in in a very passionate way.

Robert Dutt: Yeah, I imagine not too much can be completely locked in well over a year out, especially in this industry and the pace at which things change around here.

Chris Fabes: Exactly.

Robert Dutt: You talked a little bit about the journey internally for TD SYNNEX Canada with AI, and you shared that you had built out your own agent and it was helping.

Without giving away too much of the secret sauce, what does the agent really do? What does it do for you? What does it help you do better? And what did you learn from the experience?

Chris Fabes: It’s a good question.

So what I could say is, and back to some of the other conversations we had in terms of coming into this business, it’s a big, complex business, right?

We have many partners. We have many lines of orders that come in every single day. We have various systems that need to connect the dots around what matters to drive our business. What does success look like?

So what I was looking for is, how do I get meaningful information for me as needed every single day so I understand what needs to be decided, what is still pending, showing me what might be a hot button over others, and how are we producing year on year versus against plan?

So it allows me to have immediate conversations with various divisions so that we can close on open actions. I can see what’s going well on a daily basis.

So for me, it’s really a briefing agent, a presidential briefing agent, and I was able to code it very much curated for what I needed.

And what it showed me or what it proved to me was a lot less time searching, having conversations, and meaningful action right away.

So I start my day already going into conversations about what’s next, versus asking the questions of, “What have we done? What else is needed? Who’s involved?”

So yes, time savings. It was a nice experience for me, but I also know that this is probably even junior coding.

But I’m still happy that I was able to do it myself, and I trust the rest of my team that are much smarter around agent creation to build some more relevant, bigger, impactful agents in the future.

And I’ll just use those.

Robert Dutt: It’ll be interesting to see where it goes. Once again, I want to thank you for taking the time.

Chris Fabes: Absolutely. Happy to be here. Thanks for your time.

Robert Dutt: Chris Fabes, president of TD SYNNEX Canada, speaking with me at TD SYNNEX Inspire Canada in Toronto.

One of the interesting takeaways for me was the distinction between some of the emerging opportunities TD SYNNEX is exploring, including robotics, space and physical AI, and the more immediate opportunities Fabes sees for Canadian partners in areas like cloud, cybersecurity and helping customers manage the economics of AI.

There’s also an interesting longer-term story developing around how TD SYNNEX is expanding its role beyond traditional distribution, bringing new vendors and capabilities into the channel and helping partners put together more complete solutions for their customers.

My thanks to Chris and to the TD SYNNEX team for making the conversation possible.

And thank you for listening today. If you’re enjoying the show, please do subscribe to or follow the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all the usual places.

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Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.