Rakesh Parbhoo, Executive Vice President, Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Westcon-Comstor shares insights into the strategies and initiatives the company, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, is adopting to empower its partners. He also explains how distributors are redefining value and differentiation to stay relevant in the backdrop of growth of hyperscaler marketplaces.
How would you describe the constantly evolving landscape of distribution (Global and the Middle East And Africa)?
For me, both globally and regionally we’re at one of the most exciting and transformative points in the history of distribution and the channel more broadly. As cloud and AI revolutionise how businesses operate, and with the shift to recurring revenue models based on software, services and subscriptions, we at Westcon-Comstor feel better placed than ever to add value to partners and vendors. I believe that, in 2025, distributors are probably more accurately described as solution architects, technology aggregators and growth enablers.
Our role today is to unlock new opportunities for partners and vendors, helping them navigate a changing market and new technologies through our value-added services and our data-driven approach. In my opinion, distribution has never occupied such a central and strategic role in the channel and the wider technology ecosystem.
What are some of the challenges are you facing today and how do you intend to overcome them?
Like every international business, we are keeping a close eye on the global macroeconomic picture and international trading conditions. At Westcon-Comstor we believe distribution has an important role to play in helping partners and vendors navigate change, particularly in times of economic uncertainty, and this is something we’re committed to delivering on.
As a distributor it’s our responsibility to consistently demonstrate to partners and vendors the value we add. I’m not sure I’d describe this as a challenge, but it’s certainly something we’re mindful of at all levels of the business – hence our mantra of ‘partner success, it’s what we do’. This focusing on demonstrating value was also the rationale for our Future Ready initiative, which we launched in June to mark our 40th birthday as a business.
The Future Ready initiative will see us explore key trends that are reshaping the channel through research, interviews with partners and vendors and insights from channel leaders, the aim being to enable partners and vendors to stay ahead of rapid technological change and evolving market dynamics.
In terms of commercials, one trend we’re seeing is a greater emphasis amongst vendors on us generating and evidencing distribution-led business, namely deals and transactions in which we have played a leading role. This is a big focus for us moving forward.
Given the steady rise of B2B and B2C e-commerce, which direction is distribution heading?
Distribution and the user journey around how partners and vendors engage with us is increasingly digital. Westcon-Comstor’s PartnerCentral marketplace, for example, enables partners to discover, compare, procure and manage multi-vendor solutions in a frictionless and efficient self-service experience. PartnerCentral simplifies the procurement and management of recurring subscription and as-a-service offers at scale, making it easier to provide these to end customers.
A key strength of e-commerce platforms is of course the immensely valuable data they bring, and this is an area where we’re particularly proud of our capabilities at Westcon-Comstor. On the one hand we have Intelligent Demand, our proprietary, insights-driven lead generation programme that utilises predictive analytics to drive growth, enhance customer lifetime value and identify new markets for partners and vendors. We also have Partner Insights, which sits within PartnerCentral and allows partners to monitor key performance metrics, embedding a data-driven approach to performance analysis. Key use cases include the ability to monitor how hardware versus software and services spend with Westcon-Comstor is evolving over time. Partners can also compare growth and performance by vendor against industry benchmarks.
What best can be done to ensure sustainable channel business and decent margins?
Services is a high-growth, high-margin area that we are targeting as an area of focus for us and our partners over the next year and beyond. More broadly the shift to lifecycle selling and recurring revenue models is helping to ensure the long-term sustainability and viability of channel businesses.
In our latest financial year recurring sales – for example from software and services – represented 66% of gross sales, up from 60% the previous year, as we evolve in line with the transformation journey being pursued by our partners and vendors. Distribution was historically a low-margin industry but as the sophistication of our offering grows we have an opportunity to change this by delivering ever-greater value.
In the backdrop of growth of hyperscaler marketplaces, how are distributors redefining value and differentiation to stay relevant in the rapidly changing IT landscape.
I’m proud to say that we recognised the strategic significance of this trend early, which is why last year we led the way in distribution with the launch of our AWS Marketplace programme.
Based on the AWS Designated Seller of Record (DSOR) model, our programme unlocks new growth opportunities for partners by providing a streamlined and simplified route to transacting on AWS Marketplace – enabling them to sell where their customers want to buy.
By harnessing the programme, partners can purchase and sell vendors’ software solutions from Westcon-Comstor via private AWS Marketplace listings and sell directly to their customers in a frictionless, end-to-end process entirely within AWS Marketplace.
Partners can access our advisory services and are supported by a dedicated team of specialists in the Middle East and beyond. The new team is focused purely on enabling partners to grow their AWS Marketplace business.
Meanwhile the programme allows participating vendors including Check Point Software, Cisco, CrowdStrike, F5, Infoblox, Juniper Networks, Vectra AI and Zscaler to rapidly scale their cloud marketplace business.
Our programme is empowering partners to win new customers and grow revenue with existing customers by seizing the AWS Marketplace opportunity, while securing the role of the channel in the cloud marketplace economy. Distribution is changing, and by using our expertise to help partners and vendors to maximise their AWS Marketplace growth we’re showing the central, strategic role that we as a distributor play in today’s technology ecosystem.
Recently your Cisco-specialist arm, Comstor, launched a white-label managed SOC service for Cisco partners. What was the rationale behind the launch?
The driver for the launch was partner demand. Many of our Cisco partners have been asking for this and we’re really excited about announcing its availability. The opportunity in this space for partners is huge. The managed XDR (Extended Detection and Response) market is set to be worth between $8 billion and $10 billion by 2030 in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) alone, as end-user businesses seek more comprehensive threat detection and response solutions to ensure compliance while handling an increasing volume of security alerts and growing attack surfaces. Establishing a SOC involves significant initial investment and ongoing annualised costs.
By deploying the Managed XDR SOC from Comstor, Cisco partners can save on these costs while sidestepping the technical and operational challenges associated with SOC development and maintenance, which can typically run to millions of dollars. This is the first managed SOC offering launched by Westcon-Comstor and the first to utilise Cisco XDR.
