Ingram Micro Australia to sell professional services

Ingram Micro Australia has launched professional and training services for its channel.

"Professional services provided will include implementation and project management, lifecycle management, configuration services including IT disposal, plus a wide range of training," said ANZ managing director Matt Sanderson.

He said that the services would allow the "smallest SMB to the largest systems integrator" to expand their service portfolio and bolster profit margins.

"The goal is to provide additional services that our resellers can integrate into their own businesses to extend and enhance what they currently offer to their customers," Sanderson said.

Ingram Micro's general manager for Advanced Solutions, Jonathan Fox, emphasised that the services will be "complementary, not competing" with resellers.

"We're not selling to any end users, only to reseller partners," Fox told CRN. "The idea behind it has been very successful in other parts of the world for Ingram… It's been on in the US for a long time."

Fox said that the professional service offering is ideal for resellers who "want to bolt it on to their existing portfolio, when they don't want to invest [in the skill] themselves, have a one-off need, or a regional delivery situation".

The distie would bill resellers for the service the same way as traditional hardware and software, added Fox.

Ingram will also offer training as a service. Sanderson said that while the education catalogue is still being finalised, the offering will kick off with vendors such as Microsoft and IBM.

The program will start with "soft skills" training in the first few months, then Ingram Micro will "look to expand and provide specialist services where there is demand".

Last month, Ingram Micro revealed it was one of two local distributors appointed as Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs), through which it will also provide white-label services to help resellers migrate and support Office 365 customers.

The other 2-Tier CSP is Rhipe, the distie formerly known as NewLease. Rhipe acquired Microsoft partner nSynergy for $25 million to add Microsoft cloud migration skills.