Ingram Micro has promoted Renee Bergeron to senior VP, global sales and marketing, for cloud, ChannelE2E has confirmed. The move comes as the distributor's various cloud initiatives continue to accelerate with VARs, MSPs, ISVs, hosting providers and cloud solutions providers.
In her expanded role, Bergeron will continue to lead the company's cloud channel sales and marketing organization for Ingram Micro’s non-platform business and take on cloud partner management, a spokesperson for the company confirms.
The distributor's cloud business has gained serious momentum in recent years. As of November 2015, the company had 800 people working on its cloud efforts -- and nearly half of them were developers, according to CEO Alain Monié. At the time, he predicted Ingram would have a $200 million cloud business in 2015 -- and he said the business was growing about 100 percent annually. The same team also hosts the industry's largest cloud-focused channel event, dubbed Ingram Micro Cloud Summit.
Building Ingram Micro's Cloud Business
Bergeron has been central to that momentum. She joined Ingram Micro in September 2010 after an extensive career at Fujitsu. At the time, Ingram was transforming its fledgling Seismic business for MSPs into Ingram Micro Cloud. The effort included working closely with a range of carefully selected ISVs that offered recurring revenue programs for channel partners.
During the early days of that effort, Ingram positioned itself as a cloud aggregator -- essentially, a clearing house for numerous cloud-enabled partner solutions. But over time those efforts become even more strategic -- and the company has ultimately emerged as a master cloud service provider (master CSP).
As part of the effort, Ingram has developed a cloud marketplace and dashboard that allows partners to source, manage and bill for numerous offerings -- a move that several rival distributors have also either pursued or completed. Ingram has also emerged as one of Microsoft's top Office 365 partners.
How Ingram Controls Its Cloud Destiny
The defining moment for Bergeron and the Ingram cloud team -- at least so far -- likely involves Ingram's buyout of Odin -- a cloud services automation platform that Parallels had owned. Ingram Micro adopted Odin in 2013 as the foundation for the company's cloud marketplace. Nearly 300 telcos and 4,000 hosting companies worldwide also run Odin.
Ingram's board had considered the Odin buyout for several years, according to several sources close to the distributor. Ingram's cloud market momentum, featuring Bergeron as a driving force, ultimately provided added motivation for Ingram's board to pursue the Odin deal, the sources add. By owning Odin, Ingram can carefully control how the cloud platform software is designed to serve partners over the long haul.
Looking ahead, Ingram still awaits regulatory approval for the company's $6 billion sale to Chinese logistics giant Tianjin Tianhai. But poke around the cloud business, and sources will tell you that it's 'business as usual' for those efforts.
