Established by Ingram Micro 15 years ago, VTN is an exclusive network of independent resellers who share ideas, resources, and technologies in a non-competitive environment. VTN makes it possible for members to easily partner with one another and to turn a local or regional business into a nationwide or multi-regional operation. The network offers access to technology best practices, best-in-class solutions, and industry-leading service deployment through Ingram Micro partners.
Brent McCarty, Ingram Micro’s Managing Director and VP for UK and Ireland commented: “Having participated in the VTN community for many years in North America, I’ve seen firsthand how committed the partners are and how important VTN has been to helping build their businesses. Participation is the key to maximizing the many benefits the VTN model presents and it’s great to see how much our founding members enjoy taking part and the passion they feel for the programme.”
As part of the community, VTN members have the opportunity to network with and learn from other successful resellers, share best practices, leverage capabilities and have greater visibility of vendors and market evolution. “With VTN, you get out what you put in and I look forward to seeing VTN become the premier partner community in the UK, as it is in North America,” concludes McCarty.
Mark Williams, Client Services Director of Wavex, will serve as VTN UK’s first council President. Williams will also have a position on the VTN North America advisory council, and said: “As a sceptic of B2B initiatives, I was overwhelmed by the passion and the focus from the US VTN members and the support from the team at Ingram Micro.
“I returned from the VTN event with a brand new perspective on how to analyze growth within our MSPs and a better understanding of how we are performing against the market in the U.S., which is something I couldn’t have got anywhere else. It was the most valuable business content I could have walked away with,” he concluded.
The new community’s first chapter meeting will take place this month in Surrey and will be hosted by Ingram Micro’s North America Vice President of Marketing, Jennifer Anaya and Senior Director of North America Channel Marketing and Account Management, John Fago.
VTN’s arrival in the UK expands the community’s focus from North America to international and opens the doors for greater collaboration across sales, marketing and support services. VTN North America’s executive lead John Fago announced the expansion of VTN into the UK at the distributor’s Invitational event last year. He commented: “We’re excited to see the international vision of VTN take hold and look forward to replicating the energy and success of our VTN community in the UK.”
The recruitment process for VTN UK started in 2013, with three reseller partners attending the North America VTN Invitational in Palm Springs, California to experience first-hand the power of what VTN brings to the VAR community of network members. These three partners are now the founding members of the UK community: Lan2Lan, Symitry, Wavex