Jared Cary

Senior Director, IBM & Red Hat TD Synnex UK&I

TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland IBM & Red Hat Business Unit Channel Strategy

Fashions change, but some things never go out of style.

Take my love of ska music as an example. It’s easy to think that today’s music scene is all about genres like K-pop, EDM, etc., but there are still plenty of people passionate about other styles which, like ska, continue to have a loyal following around the world. It’s a good reminder that whatever your interest, there’s usually a community of like-minded people out there sharing it. And it’s this emphasis on community that is central to the IBM & Red Hat Business Unit channel strategy at TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland.

Setting The Beat

Having been around distribution for a long time, I know the beat of doing business. What it takes to move things forward, how you bring the crowd along. And whilst Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominates conversations, that doesn’t mean we can discard knowledge and skills built over decades of doing business.

AI is no longer a future ambition – it’s a critical driver of transformation, innovation, and competitive advantage. Organisations across all industries are exploring how AI can improve productivity, automate processes, enhance customer experiences, and unlock new sources of value.

Moving from exploration and experimentation to successful enterprise adoption requires well-honed skills of being able to build the right strategy, governance and skills. And this means we need trusted, experienced partners to set the tone and guide organisations through a complex and rapidly evolving landscape.

Aligning with the vision of TD SYNNEX Destination AI – a programme designed to help partners build AI capabilities through access to expertise, resources, enablement, and a broad technology ecosystem – the TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland IBM and Red Hat Business Unit AI strategy has been developed to help accelerate practical, enterprise-ready AI adoption across the UK channel. 

A Two-Tone Approach to AI

Ska’s ethos is one of transcending boundaries and bringing people together, and I’m all about avoiding a siloed approach wherever possible.

So, rather than viewing AI as a single product or isolated capability, our strategy focuses on creating a connected ecosystem where partners can understand how AI can solve real business challenges, and how it can be deployed responsibly to deliver measurable outcomes at scale.

We’ve also intentionally combined IBM’s enterprise AI portfolio, including watsonx, IBM’s Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) offering Bob, automation capabilities, and IBM Cloud, with Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud platform. Together, these technologies provide organisations the flexibility to build, deploy, and manage AI solutions across a range of environments while maintaining the security, governance, and control required for enterprise operations.

Hybrid (or should that be two-tone…?) cloud sits squarely in this space too as businesses look to balance innovation with operational realities. Organisations need AI solutions that can operate across public and private cloud, and on-premises environments while meeting regulatory, security, and compliance requirements. By bringing together IBM’s AI expertise and Red Hat’s open approach, we’re helping partners create AI strategies for their end user customers that are scalable, sustainable, and aligned with business objectives.

The Selecter

There’s a reason so many partners select TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland – and, contrary to outdated views on distribution, it’s not all about cost. We thrive on delivering value-added services to partners which help them grow their businesses and better support their end user customers. Partners are our lifeblood, and we’re continuously evolving our offerings to provide new ways for them to maximise results through access to our excellent people and significant resources. It’s a point of pride to have this recognised via a recent IBM EMEA Distributor Award for Excellence and acknowledgement from Red Hat for the value we bring.

Empowering partners through education, enablement, and collaboration remains central to our strategy with delivery mechanisms including ecosystem briefings, hands-on labs, technical workshops, web briefings, and industry discussions that support partners in developing the knowledge and confidence to identify valuable AI opportunities. These activities move beyond theoretical conversations and explore practical use cases that deliver immediate and long-term business benefits.

To strengthen this capability, we’ve developed AI Ambassadors within the partner community.  These individuals act as trusted advisors, combining technical expertise with industry insight to help customers identify opportunities, manage risks, and maximise the value of AI investments.

One Step Beyond

As organisations move from AI pilots to enterprise-wide deployment, commercial flexibility becomes just as important as technical capability. That’s why we’re evolving not only the way we support partners, but also the way we help them finance transformation.

Through flexible credit solutions, including dedicated second lines of credit for qualifying multi-year software agreements, we’re helping partners remove one of the biggest barriers to adoption. These solutions enable customers to invest with confidence, align spending with long-term business outcomes, and accelerate AI and hybrid cloud projects without placing unnecessary pressure on cash flow.

The Specials

Everything happening in technology today (and all that’s gone before) will create a legacy. The crazy thing (‘Madness’ perhaps?) is that things are now happening so fast we can pretty much watch the legacy write itself in AI-powered real-time.

While the work we’re doing at TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland within the IBM and Red Hat Business Unit is unlikely to lead you to meeting a musical hero (I still can’t quite believe that’s me with Rhoda Dakar), it’s absolutely going to lead to some ‘pinch me’ moments for us all. And, to make the most of the opportunities that are out there, you’re going to need some pretty special people on your team.

So, if you haven’t yet spoken with your TD SYNNEX UK & Ireland Business Development Manager about maximising your IBM and Red Hat capabilities, or understanding the AI opportunity, consider this a message to you—now is a great time to start the conversation.