Behind Synnex's major onsite and online upgrades

This year marks a significant upgrading of Synnex’s operations both on the ground and online. Synnex, which bills itself as the largest ICT distributor in Australia and boasts 7,000 resellers, is opening a new, fully automated logistics centre in western Sydney. The 1,000sqm site, which sits on 20,000sqm of land in Lidcombe, not only upgrades the company’s Sydney operations but adds to its warehousing capacity around the country. 

Synnex also has warehouses in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne. The company says it is Australia’s first fully automated logistics centre, and utilises the latest in robotics technology to improve capacity to help deliver highly efficient services.

The new logistics centre has been under development since 2012 and represents an investment of over $34 million.

Synnex has also completely overhauled its e-commerce site, with a strong emphasis put on customisation and personalisation.

The distie said it started building the online ordering site in September 2012 and that the portal features personalised content, secure customer login and account management, comprehensive product information and specifications and a comprehensive list of promotions and deals.

Synnex marketing manager Chi Wing Chan told CRN that the portal benefits partners.
“It helps partners to transact with us for much better efficiencies. It has improved the time for them to transact with us and also the relationships they have with us online. These are the key major benefits of this new portal.”

He added that it was just the starting point for Synnex’s online presence. “In the next three weeks, we will make an announcement to the new functions.”

Michael Tea, Synnex’s e-commerce manager, was brought on 18 months ago to oversee the project. He previously looked after online strategy for TV manufacturer Soniq.

Tea said that in the first week after launching the e-commerce platform, it had already received around 4,000 unique visitors – impressive, given Synnex has about 7,000 resellers in its database.