Eaton Simplifies Public Sector Tech for Partners

Hello, I'm Victoria Durgen, managing editor at Channel Insider, and I'm here today with Kyle Yoast. Kyle, thanks so much for taking the time. >> Glad to be here. >> So, I guess let's start with the basics. Maybe introduce yourself a little bit and introduce Ennet to us. >> Sure. Kyle Yoast, company is NNET. We're in Frederick, Maryland. And uh we are an IT reseller, VAR. We've been in business for 30 years. In fact, this is our 30-year anniversary.

Very proud of that. uh we sell mostly to public sector entities of which most of that is the federal government and we do a lot of eaten products we do networking uh edge products notebooks chromebooks things like that >> sure so let's maybe dive in on the the eaten front especially how have you kind of evolved alongside eaten over the years would you say and what excites you in this moment uh looking forward to grow with them >> um well it's been a it's been a journey we were one of the first eaten partners back uh 15, 17, 18 years ago.

I'm not sure how long it's been, but uh Eaton was just being introduced into the US market had made some acquisitions. Uh I can't remember what the name of the company was, MGE, I think, and uh others. Powerware, and uh we became an Eaton partner through a relationship we had with a an Eaton sales uh person brought us in. We were very uh new to the power backup game and uh but we learned all about power. Our sales team embraced the the product line.

Eaton had a great program in place for us uh early on and we have just embraced the whole line and what's exciting today is the landscape of the world of it is changing dramatically and and Eaton has through acquisitions other technology advances is moving u I'm not sure that anybody's moving with the pace of change but they're moving along with change and they have made huge investments in products and platforms and I think that's going to help all of us uh in the future. >> On that note, I know happy anniversary.

You've been in business 30 years and to your point, everything feels different, everything feels new, everything feels fresh. when you kind of look at the market right now, what are you hearing from your customers in terms of what they're demanding and what they're needing and how that's kind of evolving maybe the way you support them >> with our federal customers in particular. This last year has been a huge challenge. There's been a lot of cutbacks, reductions in force.

Uh there's been a lot of consternation revolving around how they can buy the money they have to spend and so forth. So, it's it's been a lot about consolidation. Um and and the challenges with that are a lot different than what they used to be. So now or what it has been and and I will go into this in a minute, but what it has been is you know how can we save money, how can we save resources and so forth. I feel like uh today and like for the last 60 days I feel like the chaos is becoming normalized.

We've talked about in in our organization for the last year and a half that the only thing consistent is inconsistency and it's been that way, right? Uh but again, things are things are more normalizing now and we're seeing and hearing from our customers that projects that have been on the burner for sometimes a year or two years are the funding is coming through. So that all coincides with the chaos normalizing. Um, and I think that especially for us and in this public sector, the next 6 months are probably going to be very good months for us. >> When you think about that kind of the the short-term upcoming cycle, right, you think about Eaton and how Eaton can help you and enable you along that journey.

What do you point to either from a programmatic standpoint as a partner or from a technical standpoint or or both that you feel comfortable with that you'll be able to kind of capture that demand in the months ahead because of Eaton? >> Yeah. uh technical standpoint um is I mentioned the diverse product line they eaten has made acquisitions uh to to make a very wide uh breadth of products uh and services offerings. So uh from that aspect there's you know a little bit of something for everybody.

I focus more on the program side of it. And I think that Eaton over the years has been uh the market leader in the programs programs for the VARS to be involved and have marketing funds for example. Um and then the deal registration process is very huge to us. Our sales team is out on the street every day meeting with customers, video calls and so forth talking about the problems, right? Trying to find solutions to the problems. And Eaton has a program and has had program where once we stumble into a sol you know we're bringing this solution to market the deal registration protects us price-wise because in the public sector everything gets bid out.

So we we're working on solutions at the front end but by the time it gets purchased now we've got sometimes 200 competitors. Uh so Eaton's programs over the years have been uh as good as anybody in the market in terms of allowing us to sell what we're trying to sell. >> We talk a lot, I said it earlier, I'm sure we've all heard it 200 times, how different technology feels, how much faster the pace of innovation is, right? When you think about what's exciting and what's challenging um about what's to come, how do you think about the ways in which AI workloads, infrastructure needs, etc. are going to continue to change demand from a public sector standpoint and and how do you start to wrap your head around preparing for that? >> Honestly, I I I can't even pretend to know.

It's it's just moving so fast. Um we're just trying to keep up with the speed of the clients and uh you know where we sit in the middle um we rely on companies like Eaton like to help that right our customers are telling us of a problem. uh we're trying to figure out how to solve that problem. We go to partners like Eaton and you know their product management staff, their engineering staff, our sales team at Eaton is is wonderful. So I can't honestly just can't get my head around where we're going because of what I've seen in the last two years is I didn't think we would be anywhere near we where we are today.

I can't imagine where we're going to be in a couple years from now. My brain is not uh not equipped to handle that. But we're going to be there. We're going to be there. we have to be and we'll evolve with customers uh as they need it and we're thankful for partnerships like with Eaton who are also evolving and probably even at the a faster speed than the customers. And then I'm curious for resellers who maybe are in your position right and who are going everything is new there's demand and there's opportunity but I don't know how to go capture it I don't know where to start.

How has your experience with Eaton and with the program do you think enabled you to feel more confident going I see the opportunity and and we will be able to capture that efficiently. Well, I think I mentioned this earlier. The the program that uh deal registration program has been what for us has been a gamecher. Most of what we want to do is be in front of the customer, right? When when you're in front of the customer talking about pain points, you need something a mechanism which is deal registration program or some other program to help you to be competitive.

Uh, and Eaton has has been there for us along the way and I know that they're going to continue to be there. I mean, they espouse this all the time and they need to because if they don't, then they're going to be uh just a me too company. >> To any resellers, MSPs, etc. maybe who are are watching this and have been on the fence about joining Eaton's Power Advantage, have seen it before. What would you say to them have been kind of a few of the key benefits you've experienced that you think anyone could benefit from in the space? >> Sure.

Well, Eaten does a lot of things very well that uh someone considering to become an Eaton partner should should know about. One is they've got great support. They've got great leadership. They've got great sales team. They've got great product management. Their engineering top to bottom is just it's really wonderful uh and supportive. The product line is incredibly diverse and it used to be only from where we were selling is only power and now it's so much more into networking, connectivity, cooling and so forth.

Uh so there's a very diverse product line and then there are uh marketing funds. They they also have spiff programs for sales reps. Uh and then the biggie in my opinion is they have deal registration program that is as good as anybody in the market. and that that deal registration, there's lucrative discounts, but when you're dealing in a in an atmosphere where everything ends up being bid, like in the public sector, um there's there's a confidence level to the deal registration process that that only comes from seeing it over time. and the confidence meaning with these companies that are are looking at opportunities sometimes the details that come back to eaten aren't always the same.

So, uh Eaton has been able to figure out that oh that's the same opportunity that endnet registered a month ago or something like that. So the the dual registration pro process program is great. the process has almost inevitably over the last 15 years worked out the way that it it was supposed to work out. So, we have a lot of confidence in it. Kyle, thank you so much again for joining me today. For more information on everything from Eaton's power advantage program to AI infrastructure workloads of the future, you can head to channelinsider.com.

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