Broomfield, Colo. – While
value-added distributor Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) (NYSE: AVT) may be
excited about its Latin American and Asian expansion plans, ATS Americas
president Jeff Bawhol singled-out Canada during his keynote at the Summit
partner conference as a bright-spot for Avnet that didn’t experience the downturn
to the same degree as the rest of the Americas.
Brian Aeig, who leads Avnet’s Canadian business as vice-president
and general manager for ATS Canada, told CDN their fiscal
year ended in June and the Canadian business finished very strongly. Canada weathered the recession well, not falling
to the depths of the U.S.
and coming out of it sooner.
“We recorded growth across the board in Canada in
all fiscal metics, and across all brands,” said Aebig.
And as the rest of the economy moves into growth
mode, Avnet is planning to bring several new initiatives to Canada to fuel
further partner growth. Foremost among the, is bringing GovPath, Avnet’s
SolutionPath focused around the opportunity in the public-sector vertical, to
the Canadian market.
“We’re in development of the Canadian version of
GovPath as we speak, and we hope to have something ready the end of this year,
in preparation for the federal government year-end buying season,” said Aebig.
“We’ll initially focus on the federal government, but with some interesting
twists. There’s a lot of federal business bring transacted outside of the Ottawa area, and we need
a strong VAR community serving that non-Ottawa business.”
Avnet is also working to bring more of its vertical-focused
SolutionPath programs to Canada. The distributor recently announced plans for
new programs around retail, energy/utilities and banking, and Aebig said he
hopes to bring those programs to Canada shortly after they launch in the U.S.
later this year.
“The SolutionPath program has two sides, the
vertical segments and the technology segments. The technology transfers very
broadly because technology is the same in Canada as in the U.S., but the
vertical segment paths often have to be customized for our audience,” said
Aebig. “We’ll be evaluating the details of the Canadian opportunity and
creating Canadian versions. Canada typically trails a little back of the U.S.,
we let them get their feed underneath and then we customize.”
Aebig added Avnet’s vendor partners in Canada have all
expressed interest in the three new SolutionPaths as being very
channel-friendly plays in Canada.
Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter:
@JeffJedrasCDN.
