Limitless in Latin America: Recapping TD SYNNEX Spanish South America Kickoff Tour
By Karina, Seir, TD SYNNEX Communications Manager, Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)
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From March to May, TD SYNNEX Spanish South America (SSA) conducted a kickoff tour to bring the theme of Sin Límites (Limitless 2023) to six key markets — Lima, Peru; Quito, Ecuador; Bogotá, Colombia; Asuncion, Paraguay; Santiago, Chile; and Montevideo, Uruguay.
The touring series of Limitless 2023 events in SSA, brought customers, vendors, and TD SYNNEX thought leaders together to explore regional market challenges, opportunities, and trends. The speaking agenda featured high-profile IT vendors and brands such as AWS, Check Point, Cisco, Dell Technologies, F5, Fortinet, Google, HPE, IBM, Microsoft, Nutanix and Palo Alto Networks.
The goal?
To share insights into TD SYNNEX’s critical role in the SSA IT ecosystem, including how we can drive value for partners in the channel, and how our comprehensive solutions portfolio can push the whole industry forward.
Fernando Lopez, Vice President and General Manager of TD SYNNEX SSA said it best on stage:
“Although we are now one of the largest global distributors and have seen a big change in the structure of the business, our intention and focus continues to be on working with the market and with [all our partners]. It’s impossible to be what we are and come as far as we have without everyone [at the kickoffs] that joins us in our work to aggregate solutions that help to solve business challenges.”
LAC IT Market Outlook: Growth and Resilience
At the kickoff events in Bogotá and Quito, Juan Carlos Villate (General Manager of IDC Colombia) gave the keynote, providing a comprehensive birds-eye look at how IT investments are taking shape in Latin America — and what economic and social trends are pushing the IT market in that direction.
His presentation encompassed what the whole event was about: getting SSA subject matter experts together in one place to explore where the region has been, where it’s going and how we’re going to get there collectively.
Pulling from IDC’s tech outlook data, Villate explained that — by the end of 2024 — more than 50% of Latin American GDP will digitize. As budgets continue to recover from the pandemic, companies are moving from the eras of digital transformation and digitization to a new phase of managing digital businesses.
According to Villate, a large part of this progress is being driven by four core developments:
- The boom of e-commerce
- Employee demand for hybrid and remote work
- Governments digitizing and exercising more control over technology
- New development models for digital products in the region
And, while these changes are bringing about brand new technology challenges for companies, they’re also opening the door for massive opportunity.
That’s because, for the first time ever, IT initiatives are merging with business initiatives. Now, sound company growth looks like tech investment, and — vice versa — business investment is driving IT spending. In fact, Latin American companies with a digital strategy are investing upwards of 11% — 15% of their revenues into technology today.
Ricardo Caballero, TD SYNNEX’s Senior Regional Director of Colombia and Ecuador said this dynamic presents great opportunity not only for TD SYNNEX but also for its vendors and customers:
“We’re privileged to be in the right sector at the right time with the right technologies and the right people. Regardless of the individual country dynamics in SSA, our sector will continue growing as technology forms the basis of growth for our economies.”
Top business priorities for companies in 2023 include increased productivity, better customer experience and retention, improved talent recruiting and retention, and leveraging data to open new revenue streams — all of which can and will be powered by new digital investment.
For example, according to IDC data, 28% of Latin American companies are focused on attracting and retaining talent in 2023, talent which cares increasingly about hybrid work flexibility (nearly 50% of LAC talent look for companies with hybrid and remote work options).
As such, businesses are investing in high-growth technologies, including cloud, security, everything-as-a-service (XaaS) and more to build out their hybrid work capabilities in a way that serves the modern employee and protects the organization. This is a clear demonstration of the ways in which business priorities are merging with IT priorities.
Villate’s next point represented a thread that wove its way through the rest of the Limitless 2023 event content: Despite the potential recession, a shaky political landscape in the region, and uncertainty from the War in Ukraine, the LAC IT market is expected to remain resilient.
In fact, in 2023, enterprise IT spending is expected to grow 8.7%, surpassing the growth expectation for Ecuador’s GDP, and business spending on digital technologies will grow 32 times more than Latin America’s GDP. Even if a recession does hit, IT investments in Latin America should remain strong in several categories — particularly in XaaS, software, and server/storage solutions — according to Villate.
A Global Company Powering Local Markets
That growth and resilience is the very reason TD SYNNEX set out to host Limitless 2023, and why the events in each city were billed as “kickoff” events.
Our thought leaders recognized that our customers, vendors and other key players in the SSA market are on the edge of something big. There is a major digital transformation underway in Latin America and it’s here to stay, and we are committed to being there in the coming years to move obstacles out of the way and provide solutions for our partners.
Jorge Jove, TD SYNNEX Senior Regional Director in Southern SSA, said it best in his keynote at the kickoff event in Chile (the same presentation he gave in Uruguay, Peru and Paraguay). TD SYNNEX is in Latin America to “transfer the benefits of being a global company to the local market.”
His point being that, as a global company with a proven track record of facilitating meaningful digital innovation, TD SYNNEX has the resources, know-how, blueprints and partnerships necessary to guide Chile (and their neighbors) through this next phase of IT development.
Unsurprisingly, what it means to “enable” success looked different from market to market. But across the region, cybersecurity took center stage, with a look into how investments in AI and other predictive analytics will bolster IT security practices in Latin America over time.
Looking Ahead: No Limits
At TD SYNNEX, we’re partnering with the entire tech ecosystem in LAC to help our channel partners manage relentless transformation, execute with confidence, and capture opportunities for the future. We’re committed to integrating IT solutions that deliver real business results today and unlock growth down the line. We’re dedicated to empowering IT innovators, ecosystem partners, and technology talent to achieve great outcomes in the region.
In addition to the core presentations, Limitless 2023 attendees also got access to fun networking and social events — spaces in which they could form meaningful, organic connections for the work ahead.
And, in those spaces, the excitement was palpable. With a solid digital foundation laid in the region, and TD SYNNEX supporting the channel from end to end, the possibilities for the LAC IT market are limitless.