Building a channel for ISVs: The next chapter in distribution for Glocomp Systems

For Glocomp, one of their goals this year is to create a channel ecosystem for local Independent Software Vendors.

With distributors looking to provide more value-added services to gain a competitive edge in the industry, CRN Asia caught up with Joseph Giam, Managing Director of Glocomp Systems. The Malaysian distributor, which partners a variety of vendors in the country, is now also focused on their next chapter in the distribution journey.

According to Giam, distributors are often regarded as the middlemen of the tech industry. But the reality is, distributors today do a lot more than just distribute products between vendors and customers. Just as global distributors are providing more value-added services to customers, local distributors are also upping their game in this.

For Glocomp, one of their goals this year is to create a channel ecosystem for local Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Giam explained that these are ISVs that are in relation to data and robotics, which are also provision providers for AI.

While ISVs do work with vendors, Giam pointed out that many of them still lack the ability to market their products to the right customers and partners in the region. As such, Glocomp is focused on providing a channel for the ISVs to boost their opportunities.

“Building a channel for local ISV’s is going to be an important ingredient for the group. It is something that's very different we'll be doing because it requires a lot of solution know-how. Because for the longest time, most of the local ISVs, they try to sell on their own. And they start to realize that they need a channel too. So, this is where we bring our channel resellers to them,” Giam said.

He also pointed out that AI and robotics ISVs are very niche. As such, they would want distributors like Glocomp to link them up with the channel. This in turn allows them to sale through the channel that’s been set up for them.

“So, it's building a net ecosystem for them within the global ecosystem. We are already working with some ISVs on this. For example, we just won a DR project whereby we worked with an ISV from Thailand. They asked us to share with them our channel strategy. We work on some project together, one of which we have actually won,” Giam added.

Focus in 2026

When asked about plans in 2026, Giam stated that the focus over the next few years for the distributor will be more on data, AI and robotics.

“Data will be considered our growth ingredient, our net new business. And we're not forgoing the traditional technologies and the products and the business. But we think that to be more relevant to the market, this is the emerging part that we need to do, which have already started doing since early last year,” Giam said.

To ensure they are capable of delivering these areas of focus, Giam also highlighted that Glocomp has pulled its people, businesses and technologies together to ensure they are well prepared to meet customer needs.

“As a distributor, we're always seen as middleman. So, if you're not good at putting things together, you cannot be a middleman. We see in data, AI, and robotics, there will be no single provider. If you do have one single provider, you will end up with very limited capabilities. You need to take the best business application, AI business application, the best hardware, and you also need to have the right people with the industry knowledge. Hence, putting people, technology, applications, and hardware together is very important to be successful in this business.

Of course, for a start, we wouldn't say that we will build resources in all areas, because in the spirit of partnership, yes, we will learn and we will pick up a certain level of skillset. But at the end of the day, we will still rely on some of our strategic partners to deliver the rest. This is where we are hoping to put people, technology, and ISVs together,” Giam explained.

Becoming a value-added distributor

For Giam, as Malaysia has transformed from an IT consumption focused nation to one that provide solutions today, Glocomp has also transformed itself from just being a distributor.

“We start to understand the technology ecosystem, not just from assembling hardware, but also from a software application perspective. If you see the public sector tender landscape last year, the year before and move forward, there will be a lot more solution-based, application-based kind of tender. Especially last year, the demographic has really changed from 80% to 90% hardware and software products to tenders that are very solution-based, very use case-based,” Giam said.

In light of this, there has also been an increase in ISPs in the countries that provide various kinds of applications and solutions to address a lot of these use cases.

“So, this transition is very important because it also shows that we have also improved and increased in terms of our IT resources, capabilities, and the maturity of the people in the country, not just to consume, but also now to provide. A lot of these big cloud service providers (CSPs) and the hyperscalers are committed to be in, and this will definitely also drive the capability to provide,” Giam added.

Giam also believes that in the next three to five years, most companies will start to be do able to do more with less.

“What I mean by less is that a lot of the infrastructure will be very much used in a very optimal way, rather than people starting to say, what's the ceiling of my processing, what's the ceiling of my disk and such. We are also going to know what sort of workload we can actually support, how the workload translates to businesses, and also the functionality of the government. As a whole, I see this is changing,” Giam stated.

Apart from that, Giam also mentioned that Glocomp is also seeing a lot of demand for AI and robotics in the country. Given the high number of tech events that focus on AI and robotics in the country, he believes that the public as well as businesses are getting more educated on the importance of technology.

With the government also supporting the development of AI and robotics, Giam added that Glocomp is in the midst of working on project on how they can bring AI into businesses and into higher education through workshops and very light infrastructure projects.

For example, one of the programs Glocomp is embarking on now is working with vocational schools to train students to have the technical skills needed to work with digital infrastructures in the country.

Specifically, Giam explained as more data centers are built in Malaysia, they will require racks, cabling and other infrastructure to ensure it works properly. This would be a good opportunity to create standards in terms of how such services and deployments can be provided in the country by this workforce.