CompTIA members work with us—and each other—to build the resources and tools that demonstrate how innovative technologies help businesses be more efficient, productive, and profitable. Why do they do it? We’re going to let them explain.
In this Q&A, Tony Francisco, CEO of CloudPlus, talks about how being part of the CompTIA community has helped shape his career and business—and why it’s important to get involved.
Read more to get Tony’s perspective on how CompTIA membership can help you and your company, including:
• Gaining new insights and perspectives.
• Making connections to inspire you—every day.
• Learning how to better your business in the IT supply chain.
Related content: See more We Are the CompTIA Community stories here.
How did you become a member of CompTIA?
I have been a member of CompTIA for over 10 years. I was originally brought to CompTIA as a subject matter expert on hosted Microsoft Exchange to be on a panel.
What's been the greatest benefit of being a CompTIA member?
I think the biggest benefit of being a CompTIA member is that the members here are not here because it's their job. I think they're here because it's a religion. It's something they believe in so strongly and being among their peers to learn how to do what they love so much. To be able to do it better, is the only thing that you feel while you're here.
What is the best part about being a CompTIA member, and an Advisory Council member?
Being a member of the CompTIA council gives you a true insight to what other perspectives are. It allows you to explain the things that you know so well. But you're also listening to the explanation from different perspectives. So, while you are explaining something to your peers, you're also learning something from their perspective, which allows me to learn from a completely different perspective, giving you an overall knowledge that you hadn't anticipated.
What makes the CompTIA community special is that these are people that are so passionate about what they do in every single day of their life. And it's not just a job, it's something that they are truly religious about. And they're trying to make themselves better. And that's inspiring to everyone.
Being on the council has helped me specifically because I have learned different perspectives not just from being a distributor, but also understanding what the vendors are looking at, what the resellers are looking at. And the different subcategories of the resellers. All of this has made our company much stronger—and myself much more knowledgeable about the industry as a whole.
How does the CompTIA community help different components of the IT supply chain work together?
Understanding the complexity of the IT world, the community that exists—everything from the vendors to the resellers to the customers—is extraordinarily difficult. Finding a mechanism to bring that collaboration together is even tougher and CompTIA is exactly that mechanism. It’s about understanding that we all have a customer to care about—distributor, reseller and vendor—and working together helps everyone best accomplish that.
I describe CompTIA as the perfect collaboration point from every single endpoint that exists—from the vendor to the distributor to the reseller—all the way to the end customer to find out what the different perspectives are, to make things better for everyone involved in the IT supply chain.
How does CompTIA membership help accomplish that?
CompTIA has better positioned me to understand not just what my resellers are looking for, but also their customers. Being that far away from the customer myself, it's difficult to bring that into focus and CompTIA is the perfect place to make the connections and get the insights to help make that happen.
If you're trying to make the most of your CompTIA membership, be involved. Get involved in the communities, get involved in the advisory councils, get involved with different peers that are even outside of your comfort zone. Start to learn more about things that frankly, you should learn about.
What advice would you have for new CompTIA members about getting the most from their membership?
If you're a new member, get involved in any capacity. Be involved in the communities, in the committees, even at the social events which are just a harbor for feeling comfortable and being among peers that are wildly passionate about the same thing that you do every day. Get involved. Get involved.
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