Tech Data Finalizes Avnet Technology Solutions Acquisition -

Tech Data (TECD) has completed the Avnet Technology Solutions (ATS) acquisition, and announced a global executive leadership team reporting to CEO Bob Dutkowsky.

The $2.6 billion ATS buyout, unveiled in 2016, empowers Tech Data with additional enterprise, data center and cloud solutions for channel partners. It also further extends Tech Data's reach worldwide, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.The company now has operations in 40 countries, with 14,000 employees serving approximately 115,000 customers in more than 100 countries.

Still, Tech Data will also need to sort through some key decisions. For instance:

Cloud Services: Both ATS and Tech Data have cloud-centric initiatives that overlap in the market.

Hyperconverged Data Centers: Giants like Cisco, Dell EMC and HP Enterprise are pushing hyperconverged data centers. But a major part of the IT distribution channel now focuses on SMB sectors -- not exactly a prime target for the hyperconverged effort. Tech Data and rivals will need to scale the enterprise-class data center efforts even as some workloads float off to public cloud service providers.

Potenial Tech Data and ATS Synergies

Still, Dutkowsky sees plenty of synergies going forward. He explained the deal to CNBC back in September 2016 in this interview:

Now that the deal is finalized, here's the updated Tech Data executive lineup reporting to Dutkowsky includes:

Chuck Dannewitz, executive vice president, CFO

Rich Hume, executive vice president, COO

Beth Simonetti, executive vice president, chief human resources officer

John Tonnison, executive vice president, CIO

David Vetter, executive vice president, chief legal officer

Reporting to COO Rich Hume are:

William Chu, president, Asia-Pacific

Jaideep Malhotra, president, Global Computing Components

Joe Quaglia, president, Americas

Patrick Zammit, president, Europe

Els Demeester, corporate vice president, Integration

Michael Urban, corporate vice president, Strategy, Transformation and Global Vendor Management

Evolving Competitive Strategies

We'll be watching to see how Tech Data integrates ATS into its business, particularly on the cloud services front -- where Tech Data must integration operations while also competing against Ingram Micro Cloud, Synnex CloudSolv and distribution upstarts like Pax8.

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