We use the term “channel partner” quite often to describe the many types of organizations that TD SYNNEX works with to bring IT solutions to market. On one side of the solutions orchestration model are our customers — primarily solutions providers that have close relationships with the various end user customers that do business in many vertical markets. On the other side are the tech manufacturers, or vendors, that are creating the innovative technology that TD SYNNEX packages together to help solve customer challenges. Our Global Lifecycle Management (GLM) global business unit sits in one of the more unique positions in the distribution continuum where there are TD SYNNEX vendors who serve a dual role as GLM OEM customers as well.

As a services organization, GLM specializes in end-to-end product lifecycle services, such as supply chain, integration, repair and asset disposition. We recently highlighted the global partnership expansion with Fujitsu where Fujitsu leveraged GLM as its sole outsource partner for their Technical Maintenance Services business.

Our latest global partnership expansion is with Cohesity, a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader in enterprise data backup and recovery solutions. Cohesity felt a limitation in their global scaling of installation and implementation services, which in turn left a gap in resources to continue the innovation of their bread-and-butter next-gen data management solutions.

From the Top: Scale, Scope, Success

Cohesity does something that nearly every organization is prioritizing: they keep data secure. While they serve as the experts in software development, innovation and rollout for data security, they faced a distinct challenge of not being able to offer a full, end-to-end solution.

As they looked for an ecosystem partner that could handle installation and implementation services at a global scale, they connected with TD SYNNEX GLM to inquire about outsourcing opportunities. The two sides sat down to discuss a strategy that could allow GLM to ease the burden of scaling services to free up Cohesity resources to focus on software development and delivery.

Cohesity first partnered with TD SYNNEX (legacy Tech Data) in 2018, and this familiarity helped give Cohesity the confidence to partner with GLM services:

“We can easily leverage Tech Data GLM to grow our Cohesity footprint and scale. I’ve worked with the team at Tech Data for many years, so partnering with them was a natural fit.” — James Curtice, Cohesity

The Total Package: A Suite of Answers

To help solve Cohesity’s need to drive scale and streamline its solution delivery to the IT ecosystem, GLM stepped in with a full suite of offerings:

Installation
In addition to traditional software installation services on Cohesity appliances, GLM also managed the installation of third-party hardware.

Data protection configuration
GLM manages Cohesity’s capabilities to configure data protection services more quickly for customer workloads.

Hardware maintenance
This includes IT support, next-business-day and four-hour support options, where both case management and field resource deployments are handled as a white-label service globally.

Training and certification
The latest development of the GLM-Cohesity partnership has been the creation of a certification program that helps amplify the support offered throughout the tech ecosystem.

This suite of GLM services played a particularly useful role during COVID-19 pandemic-fueled issues, such as adhering to local guidelines, travel restrictions and facility protocols, all followed flexibly and rigorously by GLM staff for optimal customer experiences.

What’s Next: Outcome-based Approach Pays off

The GLM-Cohesity relationship set out to achieve one thing and it accomplished exactly that: Freeing up resources to focus on product development and business growth. When two organizations use their separate areas of expertise together, great things can happen. As a result, this partnership ensured more channel partners were able to put their new data protection software solution into operation much more quickly and efficiently than the previous standalone rollout.

“Our collaboration accelerates the process for partners starting or building their Cohesity practice, allowing them to expand their global services reach and deliver maximum business outcomes.” — Mike Houghton, Cohesity

You can read the full case study here.