CRN IMPACT Awards: Glüh helps MSPs resell hardware with SaaS platform

When Lorenzo Coppa was running Melbourne-based reseller City Software, he found managed services providers in Australia often lack the resources to balance both the provision of managed IT services and reselling IT hardware and software.

He also found MSP customers prefer buying technology products from their IT service providers.

“MSP customers rely on the expertise of the provider to ensure IT system as a whole. However, it can be time-consuming to track down the right product at a good price and in stock at wholesalers,” Glüh said.

“Therefore MSPs, especially smaller ones, hate quoting. Often founders need to stay after hours.”

After City Software closed in 2015, Coppa banked on his decades of channel experience to start Glüh a year later and developed a marketplace platform to help MSPs resell hardware and software. He also brought in his former company’s chief architect Andrew Rauber to the fold.

Coppa said the platform offers fast quoting, sales and automated procurement that will generate more income for an MSP. The platform is built on the .NET stack in C# and hosted on Azure, with integrations with ConnectWise, Autotask and Xero.

“Glüh delivers a real-time platform that makes day-to-day product procurement simple for MSPs,” Glüh said.

“It blends work management, which includes selection, quoting and sales processes of IT products, with procurement automation.”

“With Glüh, the right product to meet a customer need can be found based on parameters and quoted or sold within two minutes (or 30 seconds with a template) on any device.”

Glüh also integrated with 28 Australian distributors, including Dicker Data, Exclusive Networks, Synnex, Westcon, Arrow ECS, Ingram Micro and Tech Data.

The company started servicing New Zealand-based MSPs earlier this year, and is looking to expand to the United States in the third quarter of 2019. Coppa said many partners have already signed up through word of mouth.

Glüh is a finalist in the 'Emerging Innovator' category in the 2019 CRN Impact Awards. For a list of all finalists and further details on the awards, please head to the CRN Impact Awards hub. The awards take place during the CRN Pipeline conference. You can get more information and purchase tickets here.