Channel

Disty Whets Partner Appetite for Growth, Adds Financing Options to Menu

As one of the biggest mainline distributors in the high-tech business, Ingram Micro knows how important it is for solution providers to have choices when it comes to financing their businesses.

With that priority in mind, Ingram Micro recently expanded its portfolio of financial services programs.

Among the newly minted services is the Ingram Micro Lending Club, an SMB-focused initiative that gives channel partners access to an unsecured line of credit with flexible payment terms and term business loans of up to $300,000.

“Lending Club is excited to work with Ingram Micro to make affordable credit available to their tens of thousands of SMB-focused channel partners,” said Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Lending Club, an online credit marketplace that facilitates both business and personal loans. “The purchase finance line of credit available through Lending Club will help Ingram Micro accelerate its core business, and the term loan product will empower Ingram Micro channel partners to invest in their own growth and deliver greater value to their customers.”

Another new offering is the Ingram Micro NOW account, a capital access program that, according to last month’s announcement, “helps channel partners generate more sales, increase inventory, be more competitive, go after bigger clients, and offer customers expended payment terms.”

Third, the distributor has revamped its Lease-IT program, through which it helps solution providers offer end users flexible terms and conditions for leasing products.

“As more and more businesses seek to ‘realize the promise of technology’ , the cash flow of a growing channel partner is often strained,” said Kelly Carter, senior director of credit development at the distributor, in a press release. “We’re constantly asking our partners what more we can do, and, in response, we’ve designed three new financing programs that will make it easier to market and sell technology to businesses of all sizes.”

Ingram Micro’s existing portfolio of credit and finance services is extensive, with net terms lines of credit, flooring, and custom financing among the available offerings.

Sources at Ingram Micro say that the disty’s resellers have already started taking advantage of the new and refreshed services.

“With the Ingram Micro Lease-IT program, we can now take our value add to the next level,” said Howard Mansbach of GEM Technologies, a solution provider based in New York (2015 SMB 500 No. 362) and a member of the Ingram Micro SMB Alliance. “Not only are we able to develop the technical solution for our clients, but now we can also quickly provide leasing estimates to enable the customer to actually make the purchase.”

With a focus on small and midsize businesses, GEM Technologies delivers a broad array of solutions to its customers, including systems and infrastructure integration, unified messaging, disaster recovery and business continuity, virtualization, managed services, and security and performance audits.

But GEM isn’t alone in capitalizing on the financial services that Ingram Micro has to offer. Many of the distributor’s top-performing partners, especially in the SMB arena, are doing the same.

An analysis of the Ingram Micro SMB 500 reveals that there’s a strong correlation between the use of a distributor’s financial services and profitability, with more than 80 percent of the solution providers on that list using Ingram Micro’s financial services regularly. What’s more, the SMB 500’s high-growth companies access available credit more often than those with growth rates of less than 50 percent.

The Ingram Micro SMB 500, compiled by Ingram Micro’s Business Intelligence Center and U.S. SMB Business Unit, and business strategy firm The 2112 Group, recognizes the sustained growth and business performance of SMB-focused channel partners.

This year’s fourth annual Ingram Micro SMB 500 shows the group growing at a compound rate of 42 percent, with the highest-ranking channel partner posting a three-year annual growth rate of 266 percent. The annual ranking is based on the performance of more than 20,000 small-business solution providers operating under the Ingram Micro umbrella, and shows partners growing at rates three to four times the channel industry average and well above the channel average for SMB-focused resellers.

With financing options from Ingram Micro, solution providers can continue on that growth path by making the necessary investments to build their businesses and serve the needs of end-user customers.

“Ingram Micro is an indispensable business partner that provides the technology, resources, and financing options channel partners need to develop healthier, more valuable, and profitable businesses,” said Carter. “We’re thrilled to team with the industry’s best lenders and financing companies to bring to market relevant programs that will help our channel partners and the customers they serve build better businesses using technology."

Insights from Ingram Micro. Read more Ingram Micro blogs here.