Why You Need a VAR Expert on Your Board

Value added IT product resellers (VARs) have contended with thin margins for years and have long considered adding higher-margin services to the mix of their offerings. VARs have a wide variety of services from which to choose, including product-attached installation services, integration, solution development, and even pure consulting. In the quest for higher margins associated with any service offering, VARs encounter a long list of starkly different requirements in nearly every aspect of their business, including:

• Executive leadership, expectations and strategy
• Contract vehicles
• BD / Sales staff and skills
• Partners
• Capture
• Quals
• Agreements / legal
• Delivery staff and skills
• IT systems

Building out a services business from scratch while growing (or at least maintaining) the legacy VAR business is difficult. A buy strategy (rather than build) is a valid approach and requires support from ownership, management and the board.

When it comes to the technology reseller landscape, a VAR expert can bring unique and significant value to a corporate board.  In architecting a corporate development strategic framework, a VAR expert can bring new skills, best practices, and a fresh mindset for guiding sales, delivery, financial performance metrics and innovative management practices. With an executive who has experience as an OEM, a VAR, and integrator, in the SaaS marketplace, the executive can help a board in the following domains —

Defining Acquisition Objectives – how to align acquisitions with the company’s strategic goals with targeting high-margin services and prioritize acquisitions in managed security services, cloud consulting, and AI-enabled security platforms.

Defining & Leverage Existing Strengths – help to identify companies that compliment the company’s current offerings and build on existing capabilities. Help to consider acquisitions that allow geographic expansion or into new verticals, such as healthcare, financial services and education.

Establishing a Strategic M&A Framework – help to set clear criteria for target acquisitions, including size, financial health, and growth potential; and while conducting due diligence to assess synergies and integration feasibility. Help to balance risk with reward, targeting companies with strong growth potential while ensuring manageable integration.

Focusing on High-Value Acquisitions – help to target smaller, specialized companies with AI, cybersecurity, or cloud expertise that can scale quickly and integrate seamlessly.

Guiding Cultural Integration – help to ensure smooth post-acquisition integration, focusing on aligning cultures, processes, and technologies to realize synergies. Help to retain key talent by ensuring cultural alignment and leadership integration.

Fostering Partnerships – in addition to acquisitions, help to identify strategic partnerships with cloud service providers, IT companies, and security firms to access new technologies and markets. Help to leverage existing vendor relationships for joint ventures and acquisitions.

Supporting Long-Term Growth – help to plan for future acquisitions that align with emerging technology trends and remain aware of industry shifts to identify new growth opportunities.

Providing Governance – help to ensure acquisitions align with the company’s broader strategic goals, providing oversight on risk management and operational priorities. Help to monitor post-acquisition performance to ensure the company captures expected value.

Considering Financial Models – help to structure acquisitions in a way that optimizes cash flow and minimize risk.

 

While actual acquisition targets should be identified through careful due diligence, considering cultural fit, technologic compatibility, financial health, and the ability to integrate operations efficiently, a VAR expert can help provide the kind of analysis with using AI-powered tools specifically engineered for inferring, assessing, and recommending M&A possibilities. In the rapidly evolving technology sector, strategic mergers can offer substantial benefits, including expanded service offerings, enhanced market reach, and increased financial performance.

 

**Scott Keough brings over 30 years of leadership experience in B2B SaaS, working with firms serving VARs, integrators, and OEMs. His expertise spans planning, business development, sales, and service delivery for cloud, IT infrastructure, and AI offerings. With a proven record of bootstrapping startups to profitability and positioning them for rapid growth, Scott excels at setting strategy, architecting solutions, building teams, and providing governance and guidance—qualities that uniquely position him to contribute significantly as a board member to firms in the reselling industry. Scott co-founded a procurement SaaS firm where he most recently was instrumental in the acquisition of his firm by a JMI Equity private equity-owned platform company, Unanet.