Frank Vitagliano on GTDC Research & Future of Platforms

thumbnail Frank Vitagliano on GTDC Research & Future of Platforms

GTDC CEO Frank Vitagliano shares insights on vendor onboarding, distribution’s evolving role, and platforms shaping the IT channel’s future.

Written By: Victoria Durgin
Aug 5, 2025
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Frank Vitagliano’s storied channel career needs very little introduction for most in the industry. As CEO of the Global Technology Distribution Council(GTDC), he now has his eyes on the current and future state of distribution.

At GTIA ChannelCon in Nashville, he spoke with Channel Insider about GTDC’s recent guide to vendor onboarding. He also shared his view on how platforms are shaping the next iteration of the distribution experience.

Recent GTDC research highlights the importance of successful vendor onboarding

GTDC’s board and larger membership comprise the executive leadership of the world’s largest IT distribution companies. GTDC members drive an estimated $170 billion in annual worldwide sales of products, services, and solutions through diverse business channels.

“The Distribution Onramp: A Quick-Start Guide for Established and Emerging Technology Vendors” offers practical steps and best practices for the successful onboarding of new vendors into the global IT supply chain. 

Those steps, as outlined in the report, include the following:

  • Complete a market coverage evaluation to identify gaps and opportunities for expansion.
  • Optimize products and services for channel partners/distribution. 
  • Align sales and technical competencies to ensure the respective teams can collaborate and help manage lead generation, pipelines and partner support.
  • Establish clear rules of engagement to avoid misunderstandings and partner conflicts.
  • Ensure offerings are “channel-ready” to speed adoption and simplify partner management.
  • Invest in marketing resources and programs to better engage the channel community.
  • Provide technical resources to train and support distributor teams and integration projects.
  • Create clearly defined goals and metrics to track future progress. 
  • Fully commit to prospective distribution partners and provide needed/valued resources.

“When a vendor is starting to do business with distribution, there’s a whole number of things to do and to not do,” Vitagliano said. “[The report] is not necessarily intended to be just a paper to read and put away. It’s intended to be a guide that you can work with on a regular basis.”

GTDC’s role in shaping understanding of how distribution facilitates the IT market

“Our focus has really shifted to one of educating the IT marketplace, but primarily the vendor community, on the role and the value of distribution,” Vitagliano said. “The role that a distributor plays can easily be underestimated for a couple of reasons.”

To Vitagliano, many of the core offerings that distributors provide are now taken as standard within the industry and, therefore, easily taken for granted, in his words, by those who have come to rely on them. 

Additionally, as he points out, new vendors are constantly entering the channel market for the first time and find themselves unaware of the importance distribution can play in go-to-market success. 

To consistently drive this messaging, GTDC holds three summits worldwide each year, bringing together distribution and vendor executives to discuss market trends and needs. The association also contributes high-level research and guidance, such as the onboarding report covered above, to the broader conversations taking place throughout the channel.

Vitagliano sees platforms as the next frontier of innovation, as distribution remains the backbone of the channel

Distribution is one of the oldest components of the channel. Although it has evolved, especially in the last decade, as marketplace buying experiences have emerged, Vitagliano argues that the model is as important as ever.


He cites a report issued by GTDC in 2019, just months before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, that predicted distribution would remain relevant.

“In terms of the overall business, we felt that the distributor model was unique in that it couldn’t be easily replicated,” said Vitagliano. “There’s, you know, 40 years of very significant investment built up and it is a highly necessary space.”

“Sure enough, the pandemic happens, and people are looking around going ‘what am I going to do,’ and the distributors never flinched. They kept the supply chain going, and there were issues tied to demand, but we got through that pretty well. I think we realized they remain a pretty integral part of the IT supply chain,” he continued.

The 2030 predictions report discusses the ongoing changes distribution will go through as tech continues to advance. 

Part of that ongoing evolution has manifested in the proliferation of the platform. From Ingram Micro’s Xvantage experience to the platforms available through TD SYNNEX, Arrow, and others, it’s clear that the method through which partners want to purchase tech has changed.

“Platform does an incredible job of streamlining the business process,” Vitagliano said. “The productivity improvements alone would be incredible if that’s all it was providing, in terms of this shift to digital.”

Beyond that, though, Vitagliano also sees multi-vendor distributor marketplaces as crucial to how partners and customers leverage technology moving forward. Additionally, distributors can now leverage AI-enhanced insights built on the vast amounts of data they hold. These are contributing to opportunity identification and lead generation that wasn’t available a few years ago.

“Now solution providers can say, ‘my distributor actually found me five opportunities because they were able to look at the data and find that my customer had an installation five years ago that’s due for an upgrade, and I really wasn’t aware of that,’” Vitagliano said. 

According to GTDC’s analysis, this new wave of innovation is still in its infancy, and the opportunities ahead may significantly alter the channel industry.

“If you look at what’s happening with platforms, I think we’ve got a number of years of continuing to get better at those things, and it is game-changing in my opinion,” said Vitagliano.

thumbnail Victoria Durgin

Victoria Durgin is a communications professional with several years of experience crafting corporate messaging and brand storytelling in IT channels and cloud marketplaces. She has also driven insightful thought leadership content on industry trends. Now, she oversees the editorial strategy for Channel Insider, focusing on bringing the channel audience the news and analysis they need to run their businesses worldwide.

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