With 30 years of experience and over 30,000 customers in America alone, Ingram Micro is the largest technology distributors in world wide. The company supplies a wide range of hardware and software products to its customers, the value-added resellers of the technologies that it distributes.
December 2007, Ingram Micro launched a business unit to focus specifically on the digital signage and Pro-AV market. According to Candace Lance, Marketing Manager for the Digital Signage Division, a key factor in the success of their digital signage branch is their partnership with Rise Vision, makers of the Rise Display Network software that allows users to control and schedule their own displays via the Internet. “We have a really strong partnership with Rise Vision. They’ve been a great supporter of Ingram Micro and a lot of our initiatives in the Digital Signage Division. Ryan (Cahoy, Managing Director at Rise Vision) is a great advocate. He’s been assisting us with a lot of our events and getting the word out about digital signage at all of our locations and events.”
Ingram Micro makes Rise’s Private Network Program, a re-brandable version of their digital signage software, available to its resellers. In addition, Lance explained, Ingram Micro uses the Rise solution to run the signage in their offices. “We have been using Rise Vision across the United States. We have their software running in our Mira Loma distribution facility, Santa Ana corporate office, and in our sales office in Buffalo, New York. Rise Vision is also used at many regional Ingram Micro events with our reseller community.
Digital signage at Ingram Micro’s own ‘will-call’ center
Lance said that the digital signage installation at their own distribution center in California was “the perfect example” of the value of Rise’s software. “Our ‘will-call’ facility in Mira Loma serves over 250 unique resellers every month, who are there waiting for their product,” she explained. “They usually have to wait about 20 to 30 minutes for their product. We thought it was an excellent opportunity to bring in digital signage, to entertain our ‘captive audience’ customers.
“We installed three large LCD displays: one large display right behind the desk where our customers check in and collect their products; this display is used for operational & policy purposes.. The two additional displays on each side wall, are used for Ingram Micro advertising of value add services & benefits as well as an opportunity for vendor partners to advertise directly to the resellers. Adding the signage has given us another avenue to communicate to our resellers.”
Selling advertising
“The signage has been up for almost a year,” she continued, “and we now have a program where we sell advertising space to vendors, to give them the opportunity to do promotions directly to the resellers who are buying their products at our facility. It’s a very unique program.
“It’s been going really well. There are over 1000 SKUs purchased at our distribution center every month. We pull reporting monthly to see what’s actually being purchased, and identify the top 15 vendors whose products are selling regularly.
She said that their Rise software not only helps them to display their vendors’ advertisements, but also to demonstrate the ROI of those ads to their advertisers. “Within the Rise Vision software, there’s a place where you can enable reporting. You can see exactly how many times each advertisement was shown over the course of a specific time frame. This provides our vendors with concrete reporting on their advertising investment.
Digital Signage Software
Digital Signage Installation, Rise Network Operator News
