Insight ON Value Over Cost: How SMBs Should Prioritize IT

Audio transcript:

Value Over Cost: How SMBs Should Prioritize IT

Jillian Viner:

What is the most consequential decision that SMB leaders face today?

Brenda Hudson:

It really is around their security posture. And that will go into ai, that will go into data center, that will go into endpoint. It literally covers every aspect from a handheld device to cloud it. They've got to have a strong security posture. There are so many threats, um, every second of every day that, uh, it literally will take people out of business if they, if they do not understand the gravity of a strong security posture. Hello.

Jillian:

Welcome to Insight On if you're making technology decisions that impact people budgets and outcomes, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jillian Wener, and today we sit down with Brenda Hudson, head of Commercial Sales at Insight. She gives us an inside look at the real challenges that s and b leaders are facing today, because let's face it, you're having to move at enterprise scale without enterprise resources from cybersecurity gaps to budget constraints, to having to figure out what to do with ai. If anything, Brenda really articulates the why behind a strategy and really puts value at the focus of that conversation. Let's go. I have to start by saying it's lovely to finally have you here. Oh, thank you. Have you on the podcast? Yes. We focus, I think probably, um, a high percentage of the time on the larger enterprise organizations. Yes. And so as a representative for more of the commercial space, it's really great to have your voice here. Thank

Brenda:

You, Jillian. Uh, so to

Jillian:

Tell you, you're kind of a legend around insight

Brenda:

Really. Yes. A good, in a good way. And of course, because, you know, legends can be like infamous, right?

Jillian:

No. You always have amazing fashion, really killer jackets. And you've been with Insight for about 10 years now.

Brenda:

10 years. And it was December, it was 10 years. Wow. I know. It's a

Jillian:

Great milestone. It's crazy.

Brenda:

Was and 15 years at Dell before coming here. I was gonna gonna say, yeah.

Jillian:

Yeah. And you've spent the, like, your whole career really tailored to the commercial space.

Brenda:

I have. Yes. It wasn't called commercial when I joined. It was, um, a, uh, basically an SMB moniker. So let's, yeah.

Jillian:

Let's, I'm gonna like tap into that because Sure. Uh, terminology can get really confusing. Mm-hmm . I wanna make sure that our audience knows who we're talking about and with today. Yeah. So, clarify for me, when we say commercial, we say SMB, what is the size of the org? What's the c Yeah, what's the revenue? What industry? Well,

Brenda:

It can be anywhere from as little as 10 team members all the way up to 2,500 to 3000. Okay. Some of them, some of our customers are more because we've grown them to more mm-hmm . Right. Which is, they start small, uh, partner relationships are so essential to everything that we do. As, you know, we're not a manufacturer, right. We, we don't create anything from, from a product standpoint, but we do sell through the best technology in the globe. Mm-hmm . Right? So worldwide, we have access to the best technology and the best expertise. And those partners are our family. They're our family, and they're in the trenches with us every single day. What we do is we produce an experience with our customers that is unlike others in, in the sense that we are one team. And that's a beautiful synchronicity because our customers wanna feel like we're one team, right. So we create that experience for them. We have about 500 sellers on any given day, and we're across multiple locations. So we have teams in Montreal, teams in Miami, teams in Chicago, teams in Arkansas, Austin, here at, at hq, and also California. And then we have a pretty robust remote, uh, set of sellers as well. So it's really this community of folks that just wanna take care of our customers wherever they are.

Jillian:

Brenda, you've worked with commercial and SMBs your whole career. Mm-hmm . Her name Intel. You've been 10 years with Insight. When you're talking to clients in that space, what's been the biggest challenges or the most common challenges over the years? And I'm curious, how has that fundamentally changed since generative AI has entered the picture?

Brenda:

No, that's a great question, Jillian. So, the, the challenge I would summarize by saying the complexity of technology, it's wonderful in terms of the fact that it's an evolutionary product and it changes every day. And to stay abreast of what is happening in the technology sector is daunting for most particularly. When you think about customers in the small and medium business space, they don't necessarily have a very robust C-suite. They may, but they may not. And if they don't, they need a trusted advisor, a genuine, trusted advisor that understands and can then parlay into the best technology experts in the world. We have access to those folks at our fingertips. We have an architect team that we can get on the, get on the phone with a customer in minutes, giving that, that customer architect level, engineering level expertise around the problems that they may be trying to solve.

Brenda:

Mm-hmm . Think about, you asked about AI modernization is an enormous opportunity for every customer. They have a traditional data center. They need to modernize. AI brings a whole new set of, of data center needs, completely different. How do we step our customers through both of those? Well, we can, and we do through our partner community and through the emerging tech technologies, right? You hear Jensen talk about, uh, let a thousand flowers bloom and moving from a world that, that really focused on an explicit versus implicit guidance through software, right? You had to tell the computer what to do explicitly. Now, with ai, it's an implicit guidance, and it's fascinating, and it changes every day and advances every day. Mm-hmm . And we are on the cusp of that. And our customers are challenged with a trusted advisor that is at their fingertips, a person that they can talk to. Mm-hmm . And no, no question that AI is advantageous, and it must be in the loop, but the human in the loop is also essential, and we do both.

Jillian:

Yeah. And I think you hit on it very early on there, A lot of these organizations maybe don't have that robust C-suite. Don't, maybe they don't have a CIO or a Chief Technology officer, right.

Brenda:

Security as well. Yeah,

Jillian:

Exactly.

Brenda:

Security officers, they're, everybody needs a security, uh, advisor. Mm-hmm . I mean, you see what's happening in the world, right? So

Jillian:

That's the shift that they're making them, because that is shift because they don't have those roles in house. That's right. They're outsourcing that support.

Brenda:

Yes. Some do. And the great thing about the, the relationships that we nurture in our space is there's a tremendous activity level in m and a. So if you think about small and medium businesses, acquisitions, some go outta business, right? There's a lot of shifting that occurs every single day. So when we watch our market, it's really interesting because customers either don't prevail or they're, they're acquired by a larger customer. Mm-hmm . And guess what? They talk about their relationships with insight. Hmm. They talk about the trusted advisor. They talk about the access to the technology that is cutting edge and emerging, and that travels with them to the new company. That's where we get into maybe larger companies that do have a robust C-suite and we're travels. You need to be talking to Insight, right? That's, that's the beauty of what we

Jillian:

Do. You're very optimistic about the relationship, which is not surprising because you have to manage and own those relationships. But, you know, there's a, there's a truth here that these small medium organizations do have a lot of challenges with the growth expectations, with the limitations of their own skillset. What are some of the biggest tensions that you're seeing organizations face when they have to make decisions? Like, where do we invest in security? Where do we invest in ai? Yeah.

Brenda:

It's value, right? It's really understanding the, the, the road, the pathway to value and understanding how to, how to get help in prioritization, right? We talked about security, we talked about ai, and, and the fact is, data centers are antiquated refresh cycles, right? Mm-hmm . So endpoints, it all matters, but we need to understand the current environment so that we can then parse together a solution and help prioritize, right? A lot of what we do, we have many, many customers, over 15,000 customers that, uh, engage with us on an annual basis. These customers have a journey, and what that journey is, whether they are five years, 10 years, 15 years in motion, we meet them where they are and we help them through what, what those prioritization levels are, cost factors. Mm-hmm . It's really remarkable when you can real, when you can emerge in a conversation around, here are the options, right? Here's the cost associated, here's the value, and customer chooses value over cost. It's beautiful because, and that comes with trust, right? Yeah. That's why the relationships are so important. That's why Insight is a differentiator, because we have a staff of people now augmented with artificial intelligence to do work for us and help us, help us to engage in a more, I mean, think about it. AI is, is intelligence, right? It's hired intelligence. It's really fun. It's really fascinating. And our customers benefit from that every single day.

Jillian:

Is there a, a example that you have recently that's fresh in mind where you've had to have that value over cost conversation with a customer? Yes. Yeah. What was the thing that got them to see past the cost and see the value? What were they considering? Well,

Brenda:

High growth customers. So we have some that start, have started, as I mentioned, in their apartment, in their backyard, and in, in, you know, different, uh, venues where they are looking for growth, and there's a cost associated with growth. So that investment and then the help with the commensurate ROI is where we come in and really help step them through this is the investment, and this is the projection, right? Mm-hmm . Um, that's hard. But, but if you have the experts, if you have the product knowledge, if you have similarities in case studies for like companies, right? Mm-hmm . We have a number of different coffee, coffee houses that are emerging. And, uh, there's a lot of caffeine out there right now. a lot of caffeine, thank goodness, a lot of caffeine in this room too. Uh, but it, it is something that is a, a tremendous demand in a growing industry, right? From moving from maybe a truck, um, a coffee truck to a single location, to a dozen locations, to nationwide mm-hmm . Those are the kinds of conversations that we have and we can point to. We started with X customer and they were in their backyard mm-hmm . Or they were serving out of a trailer, or they were, you know, and, and here's where they are. Here's how they thought about investment, here's how they thought about prioritization. Here's where we help them with optimization and value. Those are the things that are not common in the SMB space.

Jillian:

So it sounds like when you're talking to an organization, obviously they wanna grow, every organization wants to grow. You're sitting down with them and saying, okay, this is gonna cost an investment there. Obviously, there's an investment to grow, but here's the future that we see for you. And you're saying you need to invest in this thing first, and then this thing. How do you, how do you balance all that? It

Brenda:

Will all come back to what their current state is. Mm-hmm . Right? What is their endpoint environment? How old are their devices? What is their security posture? Is it fragmented? Have we been able to do an assessment to really understand where their vulnerable vulnerabilities are? Mm-hmm . Those are all of the things that will give us a gateway to here's current environment. Here's where you have vulnerabilities. Mm-hmm . These are an absolute non-starter. Security must be addressed, right? Obviously, you need to have a device to work from. Then you can branch into a cloud discussion. And the great thing about insight with, with our Sada acquisition, that is, that is profound. We can give our customer choices, right? Whether they choose a Google environment for cloud, whether they like AWS or they're a Microsoft shop, awesome. We can do it all. Mm-hmm . We can, we can have subsets of each one.

Jillian:

So it sounds like what you're saying is really focusing on the highest priority, highest need. Yeah. Where do you have vulnerabilities? Where are things not quite working at the way they need to? And then if you're talking about cloud, it's where's the growth opportunity? How do we set you up on a cloud that's gonna be flexible with where you wanna go? And unfortunately, you know, a business doesn't retract after you see growth, but if that does happen, there's some flexibility that you're building in with that as well.

Brenda:

Uh, flexibility is key, but also, I, I mentioned m and a activity, right? Mm-hmm . We can have the most, the most, uh, efficient plan for value and growth. And in fact, uh, a, a very large semiconductor customer of ours was just acquired, uh, right at the end of the year. And we have had been literally from the moment they started, like just, it was a twinkle in their eye to, uh, to get into this industry, right? Obviously a very high, high demand industry. And they were acquired by a very large, um, uh, OEM and, uh, one that's a household name. Now this, and so we're right in the middle of the roadmap with them, right? But guess what? When the very large OEM that acquired them saw what we were doing with this, with their, uh, value mm-hmm . And, and their engagement, they said, we're gonna let you keep going and run autonomously, because you're on a good path, really solid path here. And, uh, we're just gonna, we're gonna just let you know, let let a thousand flowers bloom as Jen as

Jillian:

A re make it sound so easy. Um, let's talk about security. You've mentioned it a couple of times. Yeah. It seems like security is going to be the weakest link no matter the size of your company, but it does feel like SMBs are particularly vulnerable with the furthest Yes. And I'm gonna say probably because they underestimate how big of a risk it is. Would you agree

Brenda:

With that? They do. They, they do underestimate oftentimes, and they just don't know who to turn to. Mm. They just are unsure about the right solution. There's

Jillian:

A lot of options out there. There's a lot of options, lot of specialization,

Brenda:

Right? And security can mean different things to different people. Mm-hmm . Right? Security can be identity theft, it can be device protection, it can be single sign on type of, of security. Do I have secure access? Uh, it can mean a lot of different things. Secure in the cloud. You have people that migrated to the cloud that are now going on-prem and shifting, you know, and they want a presence in both. And we can help with all of that. But security, to your point, is, again, where are they today? Yeah. Let's talk about your security posture currently and what good looks like. And that's when we introduce products and services that will erase the vulnerabilities.

Jillian:

Do you see a common gap in security for the mid-market commercial SMB space? It's,

Brenda:

It, it literally, it depends on whether they're retail, manufacturing. We have law firms, gimme

Jillian:

A couple examples. If they're retail, what are they missing?

Brenda:

They're missing, they're missing, uh, POS gaps. Point of sale, right? Point of sale. Mm-hmm . Right? Uh, if it is, we have a large, uh, women's retailer that's one of our customers that, uh, security of assets, right? Camera, uh, visibility to what's happening in the locations. It can be potentially customer, uh, uh, violations. It can be employee violations, right? So you're

Jillian:

Talking about like almost visual intelligence from visual

Brenda:

Intelligence cameras. Yeah. Mm-hmm .

Jillian:

What about manufacturing?

Brenda:

Manufacturing also, cameras. And, and the work that we're doing in our Fort Worth facility is also state-of-the-art just around what's happening within the warehouse, right. What's happening with pick, pack and ship mm-hmm . And so forth. We can step people through here's what we do, right? Being a, being a customer of our own. So security solutions and helping customers understand the value of this is what we've assembled in our manufacturing or our warehouse environment. We think this will be a good fit for you as well. So it really just depends on the use case. Mm-hmm . On the, on the, um, market that the customer is in. But we do a lot of work with manufacturers. We do a lot of work with, uh, real estate folks, law offices, financial institutions. Mm-hmm . Um, it's, um, that's the great thing about SMB. It's everywhere.

Jillian:

, it's everywhere. All right. Let's shift over to what's practical and what's aspirational for SMBs. Where do leaders tend to hesitate when they're making a big technology decision?

Brenda:

It depends on the maturity of the leader, but I will tell you cost. I mean, flat out, there are folks that want to get to cost, minimize discussions, and what we need to do and must do is talk about value. Right? It's, um, that's, that can be tough. Mm-hmm . That comes with being educated on what the value proposition is, uh, the life cycle of the product, whatever it is that we are positioning that will mitigate vulnerabilities for the customer. But cost is, is obviously something because they have to, in many cases, they have to prove an ROI rather quickly, right? Yeah. And so, so that's, that's what it comes down to many times. Yeah. However, our ability to sell the value and the vision then opens windows and doors for us to become it, to become a, a, not a cost conversation as much as a value conversation.

Jillian:

I see. I have to ask you again about generated ai, because it is literally everywhere. And every company is grappling with, do we adopt this? How much do we adopt this? How quickly do we adopt this? It feels to me like enterprises have been pretty forward about the adoption, even if it hasn't gone smoothly. And I also hear from more of the smaller spaces. They've been very aggressive about generat adoption because of course, you know, with generated ai, you can, you can do a lot more with less meaning maybe you've got employees that are more productive and doing the jobs of multiple people and not one person. What are you seeing the trend in generated AI adoption with the companies that you're talking to?

Brenda:

Yeah. It's so interesting, Jillian, because I will tell you, I was in a ride share just last night. And the, uh, the driver, some are chatty, some are not so chatty. And this one was very chatty and, and, uh, what do you do and who do you work for? And all the things. And, and we ended up talking about ai mm-hmm . And he, uh, when he is not driving people to different places, he works for an insurance, uh, provider. And he was telling me that he was a software developer. And I keep hearing these rumors that, you know, software's going to be obliterated. Mm-hmm . I talked about the explicit versus the implicit and how software will change and the technology stack is changing, but, but Generat generative AI is really, it's, there's three camps, right? Whether whatever industry you're in, there's the early adopters. Yep.

Brenda:

There's the folks that say, it's interesting, but I don't really have time to learn something new right now. Big mistake. And then there's the hard, no. Like I don't want any part of it. Mm-hmm . In fact, my rideshare person later in the evening was, I'm just so sick of all this technology, I'm just out. I've just decided I don't want any part of it. And so you really do just run the gamut, whether you're an enterprise, um, function, or a small and medium business, it's really a fascinating dynamic because it's three stages, right? Mm-hmm . But the customer is curious. They wanna know, and we can meet them where they are, right? Are they in discovery mode? Are they using chat, GPT? Are they using Gemini? What are, and what are they using it for? Right?

Jillian:

But are you finding that most of them are still in that discovery stage?

Brenda:

Many of them are really, yes. Yes.

Jillian:

Are any of them at a point where they're truly seeing like the transformative value that AI has promised? Are they

Brenda:

Yes. Oh yes. Yeah. Can you gimme an example? And what, what they're, what they're asking us for is to help guide them with the, uh, so for example, use cases we have internally, we have built, and we have bought different platforms to help us to accelerate growth, right? So again, it is, is it a retailer? Is it, uh, it is a manufacturing, uh, organization? And if it is manufacturing, well, we have state-of-the-art, artificial intelligence in our manufacturing, uh, facilities that we can share, right? If it is retail, if it's restaurant, whatever it is in, in the food and beverage industry, we can come to them with use case that is either something we've provided with a, a customer in the same industry mm-hmm . Or something that, uh, that we've built or, or bought for our own internal use, which credibility I think is pretty important with absolutely all the moving parts and pieces with ai, people don't know where to turn, right? So when you can say, here's what we do internally, here's what customers in your, in your market are doing to solve that same problem. So

Jillian:

I, I don't wanna lead the witness because we're transitioning off of ai. So this question is really meant broadly, not just about ai, but in your view, what is the most consequential decision that SMB leaders face today?

Brenda:

Oh, the most consequential decision, it, it really is around their security posture. Hmm. And that will go into ai, that will go into data center, that will go into endpoint. It literally covers every aspect from a handheld device to cloud it. They've got to have a strong security posture. There are so many threats, um, every second of every day that, uh, it literally will take people out of business if they, if they do not understand the gravity of a strong security posture.

Jillian:

So be between buying devices, POS or cloud security has to be part

Brenda:

Of that conversation layered, layered

Jillian:

In. That's right. That makes sense. That's right. And when you're in the commercial s and b space, you're talking, you know, dozens employees, hundreds employees mm-hmm . Maybe a few thousand of employees. Yes. And you're looking at your organization, it can be, I would imagine a little bit intimidating to find the right IT partner that can do and fulfill all of the gaps that you have. Yes. Yes. And if you're looking at an organization like Insight where Fortune 500, it, I would imagine that that's intimidating. That you're gonna feel like they're too big for me, they can't support me, they're not gonna understand my needs. How do you, uh, or what would you want those, those clients to understand about working with Insight? How do they know that? Okay, even though we can service global companies, we also really are there for the smaller guys.

Brenda:

Yeah. The great thing about what we do is we meet our customers where they are, whether they are an enterprise level customer, summit level customer, or a small and medium business level customer that's starting their journey, right? They may be starting out of their apartment or out, out of a warehouse somewhere, or they may have, uh, been acquired. There's just so many facets in our business that, that drive a need. And that need is, is the beauty of what we do. We're problem solvers, right? So discovering what are the problems that you're trying to solve today, whether that's through products or services, or both. We're here and we can do it all, and we do it so well because of the magic of the partner community that is at our fingertips.

Jillian:

Brenda, thank you so much for your time today. Oh

Brenda:

My gosh, this has been so fun. Thank you, Jillian.

Speaker 3:

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