The four pillars of trusted advisor services

By Robin Lloyd, Product_General Manager: HP

The distribution game has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Where once the distributor simply sold laptops and notebooks to the channel, today’s savvy organisations are offering services that position them as true and trusted advisors to their channel partners.

For Tarsus Distribution, there are four pillars that make up these services.

Covered In This Article

Managed services and solutions
Professional services
Digital services
Last cycle services
Life cycle flow

Managed services and solutions

Firstly, managed services and solutions that enable the workforce and the workplace and manage workflow transformations with the ultimate goal of optimising productivity, as well as the employee engagement aspect. In addition, this looks at security, as well as how sustainable the customer’s device ecosystem is, and then makes the most of the existing capabilities in terms of the infrastructure that we will be deploying the devices into.

Professional services

The second pillar is professional services, or as Tarsus Distribution likes to call it, pre-sales. This is where experience is key, because this pillar is all about planning, the rollout, the strategic outcomes, and really looking at the environment that the product is going into. This includes ensuring that the right devices are being sold for that customer’s unique requirements, and again, taking into account the user and employee experience. It is critical to make sure you're putting the right device in the right user’s hands so that the right outcome is achieved. For example, you don’t want to put an entry-level notebook on the CEO’s desk, and a top-of-the-range laptop on the receptionist’s desk. This is why understanding what the specific user is trying to achieve is so important, and over and above that, having a real understanding of their environment, the verticals they operate in, are key.

In addition, it’s important to note that different environments will obviously have different needs - manufacturing concerns will want different, more rugged solutions than high-end graphics operations will, and each environment will need to be specced differently, and the device and services all need to be designed around all these elements. In a nutshell, it’s about optimising the technology of the investments.

Digital services

The third pillar, which is becoming increasingly critical, is the digital services side. We are not talking about digital from a marketing perspective, but from a deployment and environment sense, which takes into account the cloud-based software and services that the customer needs. This is all about management and visibility, in terms of ensuring they have a helicopter view of their full environment, as well as the right software to manage that environment. Various things need to be taken into consideration here, such as whether or not the device is talking back to the cloud, and constantly finding ways to improve the manageability of the environment.

From the cloud-based software perspective, this pillar also involves ensuring that all business applications and software that resides in the cloud is remotely accessible from the device and that the business has full visibility into which devices are accessing which networks and applications, and when.

Last cycle services

The final pillar, which is becoming just as important, is the last cycle services, which centres around the sustainability in the client’s environment, and what happens to that device at its end of life. This takes into consideration how the cycle of that device is being managed, and whether or not the organisation has a view into how optimised its fleet is, as well as its workflows, and how quickly it can manage devices that are reaching their end of life.  Questions need to be asked, such as are these devices being run into the ground? Or is the company wanting to keep its fleet fresh? Or even whether or not they want to maximise the devices to their full capacity?

As with all the other pillars, everything is about optimisation, and the last cycle service is a key part of that. There’s also an element of sustainability here, in terms of the decisions made, and their impact on the environment. Are old devices being disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner? Are they being recycled correctly? Are we using the right channels, to ensure we are not adding to e-waste in a landfill somewhere?

Life cycle flow

We call this the life cycle flow, from the cradle to the grave, which in fact, is at the essence of Tarsus Distribution’s value proposition. We want to be the trusted advisor to our customers, and live inside their businesses, right from pre-sales, to sales, to product management, to supply chain management, right to the end.

We have always said we want to know the product better than even the vendor knows their product, as well as all the programs and processes associated with them. We want our resellers to pick up the phone to our teams before they call anyone else, so we can deal with any tasks or issues from a trusted advisor's perspective, and they know they will get the service they need.