It’s officially channel awards season! It has been an exciting past month for TD SYNNEX, most notably winning the 2022 Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year award and the 2022 Hewlett Packard Global Distributor of the Year award on the same day. Additionally, TD SYNNEX has also been named the Lenovo EMEA Distributor of the Year, the Veeam Distribution Partner of the Year 2021 and Aggregator of the Year 2021 and the Intel U.S. Datacenter and Artificial Intelligence, Marketing, IoTG and Branded Datacenter and Cloud Solution Aggregator and Distributor of the Year awards winner.

These types of partnerships are critical to the overall success of the IT channel, and we greatly appreciate the accolades that come with the hard work of our vendors, co-workers and partners. But we’re not stopping there.

While the press releases and media announcements cover the black-and-white nuts-and-bolts of the awards, we know that a lot more goes into these relationships than meets the eye. To learn more about what goes into these honors and why these awards are so significant to us, we met up with Reza Honarmand and Daan Koppelmans, two of the instrumental pieces to our Microsoft team. Reza serves as the senior vice president of global cloud hyperscale transformation while Daan is the director of global Microsoft programs and collectively, they led the efforts that went into our second consecutive Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year award, something unprecedented in the award’s history.

What makes the recognition from our vendors so significant?

Industry awards (like the Microsoft award) really emphasize the importance of partnership. This year’s award was particularly sweet as it was the first award of its kind for the newly-combined TD SYNNEX.

“Even in the difficult times of going through a merger, this shows that we can still deliver tremendous value.” — Daan on life after merger

The merger of legacy Tech Data and legacy SYNNEX did indeed present a new set of obstacles, like finding a cohesive culture and one that matches our vendors like Microsoft. Amid the merger, Microsoft also went through some of its most significant digital transformation change in its history as well, moving to a new commerce experience (NCE). Even through the NCE migration and a massive merger, we were able to successfully align, grow and prepare for the future.

“We’ve never done anything of this magnitude in our history and it really goes to show the TD SYNNEX leadership and confirms we have a strategy that aligns with Microsoft and that our execution is world-class to serve our partners.” — Reza on the partner experience

What’s something our partners need to know that ISN’T covered in a press release?

This is about way more than two organizations partnering together. This award is about a countless number of individuals working together to achieve great things. Both sides came with spired and passionate conversations, always respectfully challenging the status quo. Those watching from the outside would have a hard time distinguishing between who was TD SYNNEX-badged co-worker and who was employed by Microsoft. Together, we worked as an extension of each other’s teams to deliver a fruitful partner experience.

Additionally, this partnership has put ESG at the forefront of our vision for the future. Together, our events are carbon-neutral and we remain virtual when the situation calls for it. For the in-person events where flights are required, we are working to plant trees to try and offset the environmental footprint.

“Whether or not the events are virtual or in-person, the personal connections have remained and strengthened over the past two years.” — Daan on our partnership through the COVID-19 pandemic

What’s next for the future of TD SYNNEX and our vendors?

TD SYNNEX will continue to work with all of our vendor partners to ensure that our strategies are fully aligned. Next-generation technologies like hybrid cloud, cybersecurity, data and analytics will continue to grow over the next few years, and we will be there as a solutions aggregator and orchestrator to enable the IT channel to see growth of their own in these areas.

“We’re enabling specializations and embedding it into our overall strategy. I would expect a quantum leap of growth in the next few years.” — Daan on the TD SYNNEX—Microsoft alignment

We also continue to process the effect that the pandemic has on our supply chain and industry as a whole. Many organizations will move to new systems and processes as the shift to digital transformation is executed, and it’s all about reliably adapting. We will work with our vendors to ensure our partners don’t experience any slowdowns, all while being more quick and agile.

“We’ve been flying the plane while trying to change the engine mid-flight. Not only did we successfully fly the plane and change the engine, but we grew it and got there quicker. That’s what this team did this year.” — Reza on the TD SYNNEX—Microsoft team

We want to extend a massive “thank you” to the entire TD SYNNEX — Microsoft team of more than 750 individuals, including Reza, Daan, Bert Schep, Stephanie Ferguson, Anabel Sarandria, among others from the the 750+ dedicated co-workers from both organizations.