Synnex guns for retail and hospitality with NCR win

Synnex is expanding its footprint in retail and hospitality after landing an Australian deal with NCR, the world leader in ATMs and cash registers.

The distribution deal will allow Synnex to push into the retail and hospitality sectors with technology such as NCR's RealPOS range.

It is a two-pronged strategy for Synnex, which wants to help traditional IT partners diversify into retail point-of-sale technology; the distie also hopes to attract a new breed of partners.

NCR, which was founded in 1884 as the National Cash Register Company, was looking to expand its partner base and "Synnex was at the top of the list", said Shane Bedford, NCR's channel sales manager, Australia, NZ & South East Asia.

“NCR chose to partner with Synnex first and foremost due to its breadth in the Australian market and its commitment to the channel and the NCR brand. In addition, NCR is looking to establish a solid distributor offering across the region, and Synnex fits this criteria,” added Bedford.

It is part of a diversification push for Synnex, said the distie's national commercial sales manager, Ahmmad Issa. "The partnership is in line with our strategy to tap into a market that we couldn’t service before."

Issa said NCR would fit neatly with another of Synnex's newly appointed vendors, MYOB, which earlier this month joined Synnex's cloud marketplace. Both vendors will help the distie target retail and hospitality. "We are looking to align with that vertical. We want to play in that space now," he added.

Synnex spent more than a million dollar building the Synnex Cloud Automation platform, which launched in March boasting IBM Softlayer and Rackspace as foundation brands.

Revolution in retail

The retail space is evolving rapidly as small businesses tap into cloud and mobility. The latest entrant in the Australian market, Square, launched in Australia in March where it joins software-as-a-service outfits like Kounta and Vend that allow small businesses to swap out traditional terminals and move to iPads and other tablets.

NCR also has a SaaS product in this space, NCR Silver, though the deal with Synnex is primarily focused on point-of-sale hardware.

Darren Tan, Synnex product management and marketing director, told CRN the distributor was looking to put together solutions for partners and was busily investing in pre-sales and recruiting to support categories such as the internet-of-things, cloud and now point-of-sale.

"We are putting the building blocks together. Existing partners are looking at transforming, looking at more value-add."