Tech Data is sharpening its channel-first strategy across Asia Pacific as partners navigate rapid shifts in technology demand, competitive intensity and customer expectations.
Anand Chakravarthy, Vice-President Advanced Solutions – Asia Pacific and Japan at Tech Data, outlines how a market-led approach, ecosystem orchestration and strong enablement frameworks are helping channel partners scale profitably, while preparing for the next phase of AI, cybersecurity and services-led growth.
Credit: Facebook
Market-led channel strategy focused on partner success
Tech Data’s channel strategy is built around simplifying complexity for partners and enabling sustainable growth in a challenging economic environment. The company positions itself as an ecosystem orchestrator, bringing together vendors, partners and customers to accelerate technology adoption and co-innovation.
Partners are supported across the entire lifecycle, from technical enablement and training to go-to-market assistance and proof-of-concept guidance. This approach allows partners to deliver complex solutions more efficiently while strengthening their market positioning. As channel partners move toward service-based frameworks, Tech Data is also helping them expand into managed services, consultancy and lifecycle offerings, improving margins and deepening customer trust.
Tech Data, one of the sponsors at Canalys Forums APAC 2025, aims to address the skills gap as a top priority, ensuring that partners can confidently capitalize on emerging technologies.
Business expectations for 2026 across APJ
Based on insights from Tech Data’s Direction of Technology 2025 report for Asia Pacific and Japan, several themes are expected to shape 2026.
AI and cybersecurity are set to become decisive differentiators. With regional AI and GenAI spending projected to reach USD 175 billion by 2028, and seventy-three percent of partners already offering or planning to offer cybersecurity solutions, securely scaling AI innovation will be critical. Data privacy, network security and cloud protection will be essential for trust and competitive advantage.
The shift toward services will continue to accelerate. Eighty-three percent of partners now offer consulting or professional services, while seventy-eight percent provide managed services. These models drive higher attach rates, improve customer relationships and allow partners to monetize expertise across the IT lifecycle.
At the same time, foundational technologies remain in strong demand. Around sixty-eight point five percent of partners continue to offer devices, and fifty-seven point six percent provide hardware, supported by data sovereignty requirements, regulatory mandates and growing compute needs. Hardware and endpoints will continue to anchor channel growth in 2026.
Key challenges faced by partners in 2025
Channel partners across APJ faced multiple pressures in 2025, including economic headwinds, rising costs, intense competition and talent shortages. More than fifty percent cited increasing competition as their top challenge when scaling IT operations, while over eighty-three percent expressed concern about heightened market rivalry.
To address these issues, Tech Data strengthened its enablement frameworks. The Tech Data Center of Excellence simplifies solution design and delivery from ideation to execution. Destination AI supports partners throughout their AI journey, from awareness and demonstrations to proof of concepts and after-sales support. Tech Data Capital provides flexible financial options, reducing upfront costs and enabling partners to scale projects faster.
Driving sales growth through strategic imperatives
Sales growth in 2025 was driven by five strategic imperatives: Unify Our Reach, Target New Customers, Expand DTAM, Diversify Offerings and Deliver Services.
Unify Our Reach played a major role, supported by a stronger end-to-end portfolio and expanded geographic coverage. In India, Tech Data announced new partnerships with Adobe, Nvidia, Elastic and HP Inc, alongside regional expansions with Google in Vietnam and AWS in New Zealand. These partnerships enable consistent global customer experiences while remaining highly localized, a key competitive differentiator.
Advice to channel partners for 2026
Success in 2026 will depend on three critical actions. Partners should continue scaling foundational offerings across devices, SaaS, hardware resell and endpoints to ensure resilience. They should invest aggressively in high-growth areas such as AI, security, cloud and data analytics to stay central to customer transformation initiatives. Closing the skills gap through early enablement and capability building will also be essential, particularly in AI and cybersecurity.
Working with a value-added distributor that can orchestrate the ecosystem and provide an end-to-end portfolio will be vital for agility and long-term growth.
Tech Data’s focus areas for 2026
In India, Tech Data’s 2026 focus will center on AI, cybersecurity, data analytics and high-performance hardware and devices. The company sees strong momentum in real-world AI adoption, cloud modernization and cybersecurity architecture. As technologies move from experimentation to implementation, partners will need to demonstrate specialization, depth and measurable outcomes.
Tech Data is aligning its enablement models with changing go-to-market approaches, including greater use of hyperscaler marketplaces, modernization of existing environments and preparation for advanced AI use cases such as AI inference, agentic AI and AI security.
Using AI to empower sales and technical teams
AI is also transforming Tech Data’s internal operations. The company has embedded AI capabilities into TDHub, its unified digital platform for order management, post-sales functions, insights and collaboration. Copilot Agents within TDHub allow partners and teams to access product information, track orders and place e-commerce requests through conversational interfaces, reducing manual effort.
AI is further used to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate data analysis and deliver actionable insights, helping sales and technical teams respond faster, make better decisions and identify new opportunities with confidence.
Through ecosystem orchestration, AI-driven platforms and deep partner enablement, Tech Data aims to position itself as the distributor of the future for the Asia Pacific and Japan channel ecosystem.
BABURAJAN KIZHAKEDATH
