Building a Digital Signage Business From the Ground Up

Ingram Micro | Digital Signage Division

For VTN member and Minnetonka, Minn.-based Nexus InformaDigital signage signifies an explosive growth opportunity for solution providers in North America especially for those with existing expertise in POS, consumer electronics or networking solutions. As technologies continue to converge and digital signage becomes commonplace for businesses and consumers, the value of having a single-source distribution partner for all your technology and professional IT services becomes clear. Ingram Micro is the only full-service distributor dedicated to the digital signage market. Our digital signage team provides sales support, financing, leasing, training and technical support resources. Ingram Micros Digital Signage Division consists of a dedicated team of marketing specialists, category specialists, vendor managers, technical support staff and a growing number of cross-trained digital signage sales professionals to help solution providers enter this growing, multibilliondollar market. We can help launch new sales and services opportunities for solution providers through a six-component solution that includes networking, media players, content and device management, displays, mounts and cables. tion Systems, the drive to building out the Twin Cities only 750square-foot digital signage lab started in December of 2007. At the time, Lisa Hughes, Nexus director of sales, noticed that the digital signage topic was popping up in webinars, articles and Gartner reports.

Inception
By coincidence or design, it was following her attendance at a display summit that she was summoned to her bosss office. John DeRocker, senior vice president of sales and vendor relations, tasked Lisa to plan and launch the companys new Digital Signage Division. She felt that the best way to sell customers on new technology solutions like digital signage was to have a stateof-the-art lab. We built it from the ground up, says Lisa.

Leveraging Partnerships
To build out the ideal lab, Lisa leveraged her companys existing partnerships by first contacting Ingram Micro. We heard that Ingram Micro had a new digital signage division, says Lisa. I went to Buffalo to learn all that I could about the business as quickly as possible. She met with Ingram Micros Tom Jones and Morgan Williams, who walked Lisa through the hardware and software requirements from cables and content, to servers and displays.

For more information about the Digital Signage Division, contact Morgan Williams, BDM, at morgan.williams@ ingrammicro.com or (714) 382-2421, or Keven Yue, BDM, at keven.yue@ingrammicro.com or (714) 382-2387. Please visit our web site at www.ingrammicro.com/digitalsignageinfo.

Building a Digital Signage Business From the Ground Up

Planning
Since Nexus was moving to a larger space, Lisa was able to secure 750 square feet of it. Now it was time to design the space. Since you learn by doing, we worked with Ingram Micro, our manufacturer partners and local electricians to plan and design the lab, says Lisa. We also got some of our manufacturer partners, like AOpen, NEC and Samsung, as well as local content provider, AlivePromo, in on the calls.

Future Plans
Because of todays explosive growth and demand in digital signage, Nexus felt compelled to position ourselves as the leader. No other reseller in the Twin Cities has a DMC like ours, says Lisa. The Nexus Information Systems sales staff is encouraged to bring customers through the new DMC. And future plans include assigning a digital signage specialist someone who knows digital signage inside and out to overlay with sales representatives and facilitate the sales process.
For more information about the Digital Signage Division, contact Morgan Williams, BDM, at morgan. williams@ingrammicro. com or (714) 382-2421, or Keven Yue, BDM, at keven.yue@ingrammicro. com or (714) 382-2387. Please visit our web site at ingrammicro.com/ digitalsignageinfo.

Unveiling
Fast forward to August 2008 when the Nexus Information Systems Digital Media Center (DMC) is unveiled. Our Digital Media Center showcases three 24-inch HP LCDs, one 40-inch NEC LCD, two 46-inch NEC Multeos LCDs, one 40-inch Samsung and two touch-screen PixeLINK LCDs, says Lisa. She also noted that the DMC was showcasing mounts, brackets and carts from their partner, Ergotron.

Lisa Hughes Director of Sales Nexus Information Systems Minnetonka, Minn. nexusmn.com

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