INTERVIEW
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terms of that enablement. “When vendors look at Arrow, they no longer want to see an organisation that distributes products; they want to see an organisation that distributes enablement. The challenge that we have is keeping up with the demand of our channel partners, who, rightly, expect more from distribution than they may have done in the past.” Offering Guidance Artificial Intelligence is one of those areas where partners are looking to Arrow for some guidance. With so much noise around the technology, everyone seems to be at a different stage along the path to AI enlightenment, a theme not lost on Harvey-Jones. “If we ask our channel partners to be truly honest with themselves about whether they have an AI strategy fully mapped out, I think you’d be surprised at how few of them would be able to say yes. “In fact, towards the back end of 2025, we had 400 channel partners in a room, and we asked that same question. Twenty or 30 people stuck their hands up and said they were confident that they had an AI strategy fully mapped out.” But while we may be tempted to put every business into yay-or-nay boxes, Harvey-Jones said, “if we went into real nuance, there’s probably more than two camps, and you could probably split some of those camps into further subsections. “Some partners use it, some see the value in it, some are using it for prompting and as a digital assistant, then there are people who are starting to embrace agentic AI. “Ultimately, there are going to be different levels of adoption, different levels of maturity around AI strategy, and I think it is absolutely the place for companies like Arrow to help guide that strategy, and guide that direction moving forward.”
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If we ask our channel partners to be truly honest with themselves about whether they have an AI strategy fully mapped out, I think you’d be surprised at how few of them would be able to say yes.
Trusting the Processor Although distributors like Arrow should be on hand to guide that AI strategy, resellers need to trust that that guidance is right for them. “There needs to be trust,” said Harvey-Jones, “not just that you’ll do the job, but trust that they’re helping you to head towards your own strategic direction and your own imperative. “Ultimately we are a people business, so we will go and talk about AI, but what it comes down to at Arrow is we are people first and we build trust through thought leadership, through the support that we give, around sales, marketing, technical resource, the services that we
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