John Tonthat, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Avnet, discussed the benefits of VSPEX for companies looking to bring their solutions to the market with theCube co-hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante, live at EMC World 2013.

Talking about Avnet’s recent evolution, Tonthat said “we’ve moved into solutions distribution,” that means not only helping partners deliver solutions to the marketplace, but helping them in other areas – services components, marketing verticalization approach, identify and attack white space. “VSPEX is a game changer” as it allows companies to bring really differentiated solutions to the market. “We help our partners deliver solutions in a context where they might not have the capabilities and resources to do that.”

Why VSPEX?

Explaining how VSPEX compares to Vblock,  Tonthat explained that the “challenge of our partners delivering solutions like VBlock is that the choice is very limited,” VSPEX allows a partner to bring an ecosystem together and still deliver a converged infrastructure.

Asked to explain why VSPEX is the right choice, Tonthat said that the biggest drivers for Avnet partners were choice and profitability. In terms and choice, partners can pick and choose the components under EMC’s proven architecture. VSPEX allows them to deliver a wide range of services and get margins out of it.

“Most of our partners have a meaningful or substantial bench,” he said. The way they increase their profitability is using the right bench for the right opportunity. The partners are now allowed to get out of the lower end part of the market and really focus on consulting services – the more profitable part of the market.

From a pure distribution context, Avnet’s jobs are “to enable and train our partners. Avnet does a lot of that heavy lifting, ” Tonthat said. Then a partner can go out and capitalize on high value services. “We have a service model that allows partners to scale the partner’s bench.”

You can grow faster than the marketplace by focusing on a vertical

“Apnet invested time, effort and energy in looking at how our partners grow,” Tonthat mentioned. “You can grow faster than the marketplace by focusing on a vertical.” Healthcare is the vertical where Avnet partners had grown three times faster than the marketplace.

“A lot of our partners today look at the market from a horizontal perspective and the cost that it takes to get the business intelligence around the data analysis, where the white space is,” and that takes a certain amount of investment. Small partners can’t afford that, but Avnet helps them get into the space, and once they develop a specific vertical, it helps focus on other, new verticals.

Speaking of the evolution since VSPEX was announced, Tonthat said it started out as a reference architecture, and from then to now, a lot of partners have seen the growth in the converged infrastructure space. “VSPEX has filled the void into delivering the solutions to the market.”

“Everything comes down to time and money,” Tonthat said about DYI versus VSPEX. If you’re looking to deliver converged infrastructures and do it quickly, DIY is available only for those who have the bandwidth to do that. “DIY is not dead, it’s on life support,” he concluded.