Going for Gold – TD SYNNEX, Lighthouse & IBM

What does a degree in computing and a career in sales have in common? Both hone your ability to appreciate a well-designed programme and both offer plenty of opportunity to solve complex problems. Believe me, as someone who’s built a sales leadership career off the back of a Computing Systems Analysis & Design BASc, I talk from experience!?

Problem or opportunity?

For some people, a problem is something to hand over to others or walk away from. For the systems analyst or sales professional, it’s an exciting challenge to test your abilities and answer questions like:

• What opportunity could be created by solving this problem?
• How could we design a system that accelerates results?
• How can I combine my knowledge with the expertise of others to deliver the best outcome??

Proactive programming

This spirit of proactively addressing challenges with custom-made solutions was epitomised this year with the IBM watsonx Gold 100 Programme. Designed to recruit and accelerate the growth of new IBM software partners to Gold status, it focuses on two areas which are exciting for the market and strategic to IBM’s future growth:

• IBM watsonx AI solutions
• The automation / FinOps suite including Apptio and Turbonomic.?

Shining a Light(house)?

We knew the programme had great potential and one partner in particular proved it beyond all doubt: Lighthouse Technology . This year they became the first partner to reach Gold status via the programme since coming to us as a start-up less than 12 months ago – a phenomenal achievement that recognises incredible accomplishments over a very short space of time.?

TD SYNNEX UK&I is proud to have been an intrinsic part of the process that helped Lighthouse to accelerate their unique ability to leverage watsonx.ai and FinOps to deliver innovative customer solutions. I've been blown away by how rapidly we made things happen via a combination Lighthouse's technical know-how and ambition with our commercial support and development of the demonstration environment.?

To mark this achievement, Ben Lowe – founder, Lighthouse Technology – and I grabbed a few minutes at the IBM Business Partner Lunch earlier this month at The Savoy (which was fittingly decked out in gold) to reflect on some of his key moments. Here’s what Ben had to say:?

What prompted you to choose TD SYNNEX??

“At the inception of Lighthouse, we carefully evaluated the distributor landscape to identify the best partner to support a new business and entity. This involved assessing support, training, materials, credit lines, and funding assistance on offer.”?

As a start-up, what was the experience like for you? What were the things you were most focused on??

“For us, it was about making sure we understood the legal and contractual commitments required to create a solid foundation for a lasting relationship. We saw TD SYNNEX could demonstrate agility combined with strong support, transitioning from assisting us as a founding team to supporting our wider team as we grew.?

We liked that we were able to develop a joint business plan outlining the foundation of Lighthouse, focusing on key technologies and solving specific business challenges for organisations.”?

I remember when we invited you to join the IBM watsonx Gold 100 programme – how did that fit with your ambitions??

“As a focused new organisation with clear knowledge of the art of the possible from an IBM technology perspective, we were rapidly building credible customer relationships and needed a distributor who could keep pace. Having TD SYNNEX’s support to accelerate us towards Gold status via additional resources meant we could rapidly execute on our business plan. It avoided us having to bear additional costs or introduce the kind of time lag typically associated with recruiting headcount yourself.”??

Given how lean and specialised your organisation is, in what areas do you feel TD SYNNEX has made the biggest difference??

“TD SYNNEX provided incremental technical support beyond IBM’s exceptional assistance. This enabled us to deeply engage with key technologies such as Turbonomic, Instana, and watsonx.ai.??

Rather than starting from scratch, Lighthouse could choose to invest heavily in leveraging this support, participating in numerous training courses and knowledge-sharing sessions.”?

What other areas have you found valuable from the programme??

“Joint collaboration on digital marketing campaigns is especially useful as it’s generated significant interest in our offerings and helped us to share our client success stories. For 2025 we’re planning to continue to utilise this to help us scale the packaged solutions we’ve built.”?

Given how much you’ve achieved in 2024, what do you think is possible for 2025??

“We’re really excited to scale out what has proven to be successful. For us, this will include productising client references and packaged solutions to help organisations practically leverage generative AI.”?

Pausing for reflection

As we get towards the close of the calendar year (and IBM’s fiscal), it’s an opportune moment for reflection and celebrating what’s been achieved so far. Working with Lighthouse on ‘going for gold’ has been one of the highlights of my 2024 and I'd like to use this post to publicly congratulate them and thank them for working so closely with Peter Reakes and the rest of the TD SYNNEX team. As for 2025, I’m looking forwards to helping more partners take advantage of this fantastically designed programme.??

Ready to go for gold?

Interested in learning more? Below is a quick run-down of just some of the benefits that partners participating in the watsonx Gold 100 programme can access:??

• Enhanced marketing and technical support to assist with growth?

• Dedicated business development resource, business planning workshops and additional marketing campaigns?

• Access to TD SYNNEX watsonx and CD4D demonstration environments?

• Dedicated training??

• Access to TD SYNNEX technical architects to help with early stages of product development.?

For more on the programme, and to talk about what TD SYNNEX can offer your organisation – drop me a DM and we’ll start the conversation on how 2025 can be a golden year for you!?