Pictured above: Trey Lake and Bryan Green, Ingram Micro
Photography by Alice Schmalzl
BCS Connections, hosted by Ingram Micro in Puerto Rico this week, yesterday had a full day of Breakout Sessions covering everything from better working environments to what’s going on with microgaming.
Nick Nanez and Tom Jones presented the first session we attended on Ingram Micro Gaming, a personal and educational look at the fun and value this part of this business offers.
“The fastest growing sport in the world today is played on a computer,” says Nanez. “And the education vertical has found this out and they’re using it as a student recruiting tool.”
According to Nanez, colleges use esports to recruit students and promote educational tools on their campuses. Esports is now the second most watched sport in the United States, behind only the NFL. There were 27 million viewers in 2021, which was 11 percent more than the year before, and it’s growing at double digits every year. 74 percent of US consumers play some form of video game; that’s 234 million plus people who play a video game on a phone, a tablet, a gaming PC or a console.
“Video games have touched almost all of our lives in one way or another,” Jones says. “But what if we told you that the gaming world has generated more than eight billion dollars worldwide in recent years? And that’s just the beginning.”
These experts outlined that this sports sector needs connected technology. They need a backstage, training rooms, cameras, digital signage and more. In an esports lab, there’s not just the standard keyboard and mouse, but video and audio switching, the right network, and sometimes even custom PCs.
“We have a super robust line map from start to finish to help you build out these esports solutions,” said Nanez, explaining that Ingram can interface with a network of certified installers, financial solutions, technical support services, and more. “When it comes to gaming and esports, we have quarterly webinars and trainings to inform you, the resellers community, about what’s happening in gaming and esports.”
Digital Transformation via XVantage
During these breakout sessions, Todd Corey and Michael Mayle talked about a new Ingram microtool experience platform that will not only benefit customers, but employees and suppliers as well.
“It will be able to make our partnerships better than ever before. And it will also put all of our services, products, software and cloud offerings at your fingertips,” said Corey. “So you don’t go to a lot of different websites and platforms and things like that.”
This tool also integrates seamlessly, allowing users to collaborate and connect and grow businesses. It currently has 22 customers on it, with 67 unique people on the platform at the moment.
“And the main thing they talk about is the user interface, ease of use and customization,” Mayle says. “So when Sam Sanji came out, and he had this vision for this platform, someone asked about training and he said, if we have to do training on this platform, we haven’t built it right. It’s so intuitive that you can go in and use it.”
Work anytime, anywhere
Trey Lake and Bryan Green presented a talk on remote working in today’s post-pandemic world. They stressed that working from home is misunderstood that it is easy, when in fact it can be more difficult due to the constant overlap of work and private life.
“We need to make sure we get the support and training from our leadership and management to know when to address that and how to navigate those conversations,” Lake said. ‘And if you don’t communicate with your colleagues and your employees, you won’t get good business done and you won’t get good work done. We want to make sure that when you work with Ingram micro, we can build that complete solution, whether it’s in-house for yourself or with your own customers. You need that collaboration equipment and the tools and resources to do that.”
According to Green, when they talk about working everywhere, it’s really about how you do it easily. People don’t want to go to three different places to find a solution. With Ingram, members can call someone to quickly come up with a solution with a single phone call.
“Some of the trends I see on my side are that my partners are looking for recurring revenue streams,” says Green. “So we’re constantly looking for more ways to continuously generate revenue without having to do a lot of extra work for you again.”
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