Global distributor Arrow Electronics has expanded its offerings to include ConnectWise business management solutions. The company says its MSPs, system integrators, and value added resellers (VARs) will have access to several ConnectWise products through its ArrowSphere online marketplace.
Among the offerings are ConnectWise Manage, a business management solution that integrates business process automation, help desk, customer service, sales, marketing, project management and business analytics; and remote monitoring (RMM) and management solution ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech).
For Steve Robinson, VP of Arrow’s global cloud business, the ConnectWise relationship is about driving partner performance. "First and foremost, it will benefit the MSPs and VARs we work with by driving efficiencies and improved customer service across their entire business," he tells ChannelE2E.
"Collaborations like this one also help to strengthen our unparalleled technology ecosystem. Arrow is the only company in the world capable of providing ‘sensor-to-sunset’ support across the entire lifecycle of a connected product," Robinson asserts. "We are uniquely positioned to help our customers design, build, operate and optimize IT solutions aimed at improving operational efficiencies and enhancing the customer experience."
Arrow and ConnectWise: The Bigger Picture
Arrow bills itself as a “global provider of products, services, and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions.” The company boasts 2016 sales of $23.8 billion, and many analysts are expecting it to report sales in the area of $6.19 billion for the current fiscal quarter.
Key rivals include Ingram Micro, Tech Data, and Synnex. According to Robinson, Arrow is continuously investing in new tools to help solutions providers and resellers grow their business. "The new ConnectWise solutions Arrow is offering will enable our managed service providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) to automate and integrate proactive and preventative IT services, and help to further position them as trusted advisors to their end customers," he says.
For its part, ConnectWise has been partnering with multiple distributors. The company has a longstanding relationship with Ingram Micro. And more recently, ConnectWise CloudConsole has integrated with Ingram, Synnex and Tech Data. ConnectWise also is a distributor of sorts, reselling backup, security and other third-party solutions to the ConnectWise customer base.
Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.
