Ingram Micro Australia makes new specialist hires as Xvantage comes to life

Ingram Micro has invested in new hires in its Australian business, ramping up its specialist focus as its digital experience platform, Xvantage takes flight.

Ingram began refining its structure more than a year ago, under what it deemed Project Next, which saw the clear formation of dedicated business units featuring cloud, cyber security and hybrid business applications, led by Trent Gomersall; advanced and speciality solutions; commercial solutions, both led by Hope McGarry; and consumer solutions division, led by John Hollings. 

Most of the new 100 hires that have come onboard have been within technical, pre-sales support, field technical consultants, infrastructure, service and cyber security specialists. 

"The investments we’ve made to create Xvantage and the sheer amount of new people we’ve brought into this organisation can only happen at scale," Ingram Micro Australia managing director, Tim Ament told ARN during Ingram Micro Experience in Sydney.

"We’re proud that we are the largest IT distributor across A/NZ [Australia and New Zealand] and we employ the greatest number of people in Australia out of all the other IT distributors; we're a huge employer and are committed to this market."

Ingram Micro Experience saw more than 1,100 attendees pass through the International Convention Centre in Sydney, which was segmented into specialist focus areas such as Specialty and Industry Solutions; Cloud and Cyber Village; Networking and Infrastructure and Consumer and Commercial.

Ingram's new Xvantage platform was officially launched in Australia on 10 April, which Ament says was aligned to the evolutionary change within the industry in particular with the complexity of consumption models, combining hardware and software subscriptions along with hybrid environments. 

The platform is powered by a global real time data mesh containing many years of operating and transactions data, as well as several proprietary engines which are enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Ingram Micro’s Cloud Marketplace will also be integrated into Xvantage, allowing cloud solutions to be incorporated into transactions containing technology hardware, software licences and professional services. 

"We’re trying to create this B2C experience in a B2B world that’s extremely complex. You have technologies like AI, generative AI and machine learning that are accelerating the pace of change for all industries, and Xvantage is at the centre of all that," Ament said.

"Xvantage is all about taking away complexity and it's built on about 44 years of data that Ingram Micro has. The industry is riddled with special pricing and to be able to transact, sometimes [that] takes days [or] hours, but the automation that we have with Xvantage takes all that to literally minutes and seconds."

Ament said it allows Ingram and its partners to focus more on selling and move from transactions to interactions. 

"It’s a journey," he said. "We have a development cycle that releases features and functionality on an ongoing basis. 

Ament said the platform allows Ingram to continue to build and innovate, currently holding on to 25 patents pending on the technology with more than 11 million lines of code.

"It’s a tremendous amount of IP that we’re creating  to help support our customers and ultimately help them do more, sell more and grow more," he said. 

"The platform creates an ecosystem of everybody working together through a single platform to be able to reach the market and service the needs of the end customer.

"So instead of this linear thinking about the supply chain, it’s an ecosystem working together."

Ament said as the transformation change continues to sweep the ecosystem, he encouraged resellers to 'lean in' to Ingram. 

"The way that they show up, resource and think about their business, they’re going to need to think ahead and they should reach out and spend time with us to understand what we’re doing and see what that means to their organisation and go on that journey with us," he said. 

"It does take effort from both sides and it all comes back to relationships and human connection."