Ingram Micro Mobility call on resellers to grab share of $206 billion Cloud services market
Ingram Micro Mobility is calling on its B2B resellers to seize the lucrative opportunities around Cloud based services – a market worth £3.6 billion in the UK and $206 billion globally.
The importance of adoption was laid out by Ingram’s general manager of Northern Europe Apay Obang-Oyway (pictured) during the firm’s Winter Reseller Forum event held in Luton last month.
According to Obang-Oyway, who was addressing around 80 invited resellers (its biggest yet), the UK is now the second “most important” market for Cloud adoption on the planet, behind North America. He claims Ingram Micro is perfectly placed to help partners get on board and to boost their revenues in this evolving space.
“Today your mobile phone is more than just a communication tool, it’s how you run your business and how you get things done,” said Obang-Oyway.
“The Cloud market is expected to grow by 26 percent next year to $270 billion. In the UK, the market, excluding advertising, is around £3.6 billion. That says to me, opportunity. The cloud opens up many markets and we can help them access those markets. Competition is changing and how we engage with the world is changing.
“We know there is a market out there that provides an opportunity for them. We know there are some challenges and that a lot of our partners need support in moving across. But we have all of the tools, people, systems, technology all in place to help our partners to make this transition.”
One of early adopters
One of early adopters Ingram Micro has been one of the early adopters of Cloud based services and technology having set up Ingram Micro Cloud in the US back in 2006. Last year, the organisation underwent an internal restructure – which saw the company divided into four ‘pillars’: Cloud, Mobility, Technology Solutions and Supply Chain.
This, so says Obang-Oyway, has allowed Cloud to become a dedicated division of the organisation, operating as a “single entity.” 
The move, according to Obang-Oyway, has allowed Ingram Micro to deliver and develop a single vision and strategy for partners (across six continents) – irrespective of where they are in the world. Ingram has also achieved ‘Master Cloud Service Provider’ status, which enables it to produce and develop its own Cloud solutions for its partners, as well as aggregate those offered by its leading vendors.
Today Ingram works with more than 70 cloud vendors, offering in excess of 200 different solutions to the global market – all accessible and managed through the Ingram Micro Cloud Market Place.
“Cloud services can open up so many new markets,” said Obang-Oyway. Europe alone is a huge opportunity for all our partners who are able to access, do business and engage with customers across different boarders from a single location. That’s very powerful. Competition is changing and how we engage with the world is changing.
“Everything for us is underpinned by a single pane of glass – our Market Place. You can go in, choose, select, build, manage, monitor and provision all the applications on their handsets from one place and assess their usage and bill it on a monthly basis (through Cloud consumptive billing firm Parallels). All that is live today.”
Ingram Micro Mobility senior manager Europe Marios Ktisti, also at the event, added:“At a time where margins are diminishing on just selling pure devices or pure MDM propositions, these are fantastic ways of increasing revenues.”
Mobile and Cloud as one
Obang-Oyway was also keen to stress that resellers should not view Cloud and mobile as separate markets. He noted around 60 per cent of the UK market revenue for Cloud will be on ‘software as a service’ applications, such as mobile device management and security. 
Offering such services, he explains will open doors to a wider customer base – and importantly adding new revenue streams, in which B2B mobile resellers are perfectly placed to take advantage, with Ingram Micro Mobility guiding them every step.
“Many people I speak to out there in the market, still see a separation between the mobile device and cloud. I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore. I believe the two go hand in hand now and when you talk about a great experience it has to be about the applications that are on there as much as the device.”
IMM director of sales and marketing Richard Wills concluded: “We’re seeing more mobile customers looking at Cloud solutions and likewise we are seeing more cloud customers looking at hardware when previously they might have shied away.
“Cloud is a powerful message and a major focus this year for us. With companies like Microsoft offering their one solution across all platforms, Cloud becomes a very important conversation.”
