The traditional technology distribution model is being rewritten as AI, cloud marketplaces, consumption-based services and cybersecurity reshape the economics of the channel. Philippe Jarre, CEO and President of Mindware, explains why the distributor of the future must become an orchestrator, bringing together technology, expertise, financing and services to help partners capture new opportunities.

Philippe Jarre, CEO and President of Mindware

The traditional distribution model is changing rapidly. What does a valueadded distributor need to become today to remain relevant to both vendors and channel partners? The word“ distributor” undersells what this role has to be now. Ten years ago, value-add meant credit lines, warehousing, and technical certification. Those are still relevant, but they no longer define relevance.

Today a VAD has to become an orchestrator, someone who sits between an increasingly complex vendor landscape and an increasingly specialised partner base and makes sense of both sides for the other. Vendors want a partner who can translate their roadmap into local market execution, across a dozen regulatory environments.

Financing, professional services, managed services enablement, vertical expertise, and now AI implementation skills – these are becoming as core to distribution as logistics used to be.

Mindware now works with more than 7,500 channel partners and over 60 vendors. As the ecosystem grows, how do you maintain depth and value in those relationships rather than simply expanding the portfolio? Scale is only useful if it doesn’ t dilute the relationship. Our approach has been to segment deliberately rather than serve everyone the same way.

Depth, for us, comes from three things: dedicated business unit structures around specific technology areas rather than one generic sales motion, consistent seniorlevel relationships with our top vendors and partners rather than rotating account coverage, and programmes such as MAGIC that allow us to scale enablement without it becoming shallow.

We’ ve organised our own teams the same way, security, cloud, AI etc, each sit under a dedicated GM rather than one flat sales structure, so a partner is always talking to someone who lives in that technology, not a generalist. The portfolio will keep growing because the market demands it, but growth in vendor count has to be matched by discipline in how we organise around each one, or we end up as a warehouse with a long product list and nothing else.

AI has become a major investment area for Mindware, including the creation of a dedicated AI business unit. How is AI changing the opportunities available to your channel partners, and where are you seeing genuine revenue opportunities today? AI has moved faster through the hype cycle in this region than almost any technology I’ ve seen, and we made a deliberate choice for a dedicated AI business unit rather than bolt AI onto our existing infrastructure or software teams. That decision reflects how differently AI has to be sold, scoped, and delivered.

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