By: Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA
I had an epiphany about AI and the retail IT channel this week while attending BlueStar’s VARTECH partner conference Sept. 15-16 at the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas. (Spoiler alert: it’s a positive future for VARs and ISVs, not a dystopian one.)
I’ve attended VARTECH for many years, and it’s far from a corporate vibe. You might even describe it as chummy – a get together of familiar friends combining a good time with working together.
Like other industry events, there’s huge value in the educational breakouts and variety of vendors on the show floor, but the closeness among the BlueStar partner channel makes it special.
Closeness.
That will be the first of many times we mention the concept of “closeness” here.
For example, keynote speaker Zack Kass, the former head of go to market at OpenAI, highlighted what AI cannot do and, thus, what our channel should do more of. Kass implored the audience of nearly 1,600 technology solution providers and vendors to “optimize for humanistic qualities.”
“We need to design around the things that AI cannot do,” he said. “Master adaptability, curiosity, empathy, courage, and wisdom. Those are things that machines can’t do and we don’t want them to.”
Those behaviors may be a stretch for some audiences, but most retail IT VARs and ISVs I’ve met through the RSPA community specialize in adaptability, curiosity, and empathy for their merchant customers.
VARs and ISVs naturally care more for their merchants than the margin-obliterating, VC-backed, 800-number, one-size-fits-all POS providers because local solution providers work more closely with their customers.
So imagine if AI can help solution providers save time with administrative tasks, enabling them to spend more time and grow even closer to their customers.
By learning their customers’ needs more intimately, VARs and ISVs will be better equipped to recommend impactful products and services – many of them AI-enabled – that will help merchants understand their customers and serve them faster, more accurately, and in a more personalized fashion.
For example, the best that many merchants can do is greet all customers (including regulars) in a friendly-yet-generic manner like “Welcome in” or “Good afternoon. Are you just looking?”
Imagine if all associates had mPOS devices integrated with the company’s CRM system and AI computer-vision powered cameras that alerted them when a regular customer entered. The associate could say, “You’re Caitlin, right? Welcome back! Do you want to look at blazers or something different today?” or “Hi, Emma! Your favorite Strawberry Acai refresher today?”
That would create greater closeness between the merchant and customer, helping more consumers feel like a VIP and not just another face in the crowd.
Many of us – that includes RSPA members and me – have been distracted by the humanoid aspect of AI, but that’s just a fraction of the technology’s capabilities.
AI is a tool that can supercharge other technologies, connect people faster and more effectively, and help us become closer with each other, the way God intended.
The misuse of phones and social media have pulled society apart. AI-powered technologies, applied appropriately at retailers, restaurants, and grocery stores by capable and caring VARs and ISVs, can bridge many divides and bring us closer together.
More AI Insights from VARTECH 2025
The main stage presentation “Business Transformation in the Age of AI” challenged attendees with this statement and question: “Your customer is changing. Are you prepared?”
Rob Risany of RSPA member Intel said AI-driven enterprises ask themselves these three key questions:
- Are we deploying hardware capable of running the workloads of today and also enabling emerging experiences?
- Is the software we are leveraging not only flexible and extensible but also secure?
- Are we leveraging partners who have an understanding of not only what I need now but what I need tomorrow?
Intel’s Lesek Demont advised the solution providers in the audience, “We can’t be about the hype. We have to be about outcomes and fulfilling a specification. And we have to get earlier in our conversations with our customers so we are the ones writing the scope, not just responding to it.”
A main stage panel featuring four RSPA-member companies – Luke Wilwerding of Elo, Clinton Capuzzi of ISV meldCX, Joel Polanco of Intel, Dean Reverman of BlueStar, and moderator John Martin of BlueStar – focused on AI as well:
- “Your approach to AI starts at the top. You have to say, ‘We have to be ready as an AI organization.’ Ask, ‘Who am I partnering with to help me lead for the next 10 years?’” Wilwerding
- “Don’t start with a blank canvas conversation with your customers. We specialize in package solutions, and then we adapt to what the customer needs. We’re delivering solutions today while also looking at what’s coming tomorrow.” Capuzzi
- “You need to deliver on both training and trust to sell AI solutions. You have to be willing to respond to your customer when appropriate, ‘It’s possible to do what you’re describing but that’s very expensive.’ Then help them get huge gains implementing a basic solution.” Polanco
- “We see customers with grand plans and a massive scope, and we have to help them be realistic about what can be achieved.” Capuzzi
- “You have to get nichey with what your solutions are and deliver solutions that are realistic. You’ve got to keep an eye on putting money in the bank.” Reverman
The breakout panel “Smarter Stores, Smarter Sales: Leveraging AI and Automation for the Future of Shopping” featured executives from five RSPA-member organizations: Maddie Gainza of Esper, Brandon Macaulay of Mobile Insight, Shane Broussard of Foodhub, Luke Wilwerding of Elo, and moderator Duane Roebuck of BlueStar.
Among the top quotes delivered to dozens of VARs in the room were:
- “We don’t want to think about AI as a general technology. We want to think about it as an application solving a specific problem. We want AI to exemplify your best employee across the board.” Macaulay
- “What’s the application? What’s the product? What problem are we solving? We need to get to the point where VARs can sell AI without the data scientist. What we’re chasing today is the productization of this.” Wilwerding
- “We’re laying the foundation and giving you the tools you need so you can be future-ready to serve your customers. We can meet our customers where they are and grow our AI offering to meet their needs.” Gainza
- “AI is not one size fits all. It’s all about the use case. You need to have a goal first. Based on that goal, you might have five, six, or 50 agents running at one time.” Macaulay
VARTECH 2025 By The Numbers
BlueStar’s Reverman shared many positive sales numbers with the audience, reflecting strength for BlueStar in particular and the channel in general. The distributor reported “strong growth” in POS, auto ID, and mobility technologies with the sales chart for RFID appearing as a hockey stick. (That means rapid growth for all you non-sports types.) Inside POS, BlueStar saw its biggest upswing in the hospitality vertical.
More numbers:
- VARTECH featured 128 exhibitors, 17 of them first-time ISVs attending the show.
- 70% of BlueStar shipments are picked by robots, helping the company achieve a video-verified order accuracy of 99.99%.
- Just over 11,000 individual companies purchased products from BlueStar over the past year with 10,700+ of them serving the SMB market.
BlueStar highlighted several new and expanding programs including:
- Networking & Connectivity Services Program: A main goal of this program is to help VARs sell cellular data plans to their customers, saving end users up to 20% off their monthly data plan. The intended results are to create stickiness and generate 15% MRR (monthly recurring revenue) for the solution provider. Jim Hilton was named BlueStar’s Director of Networks and Connectivity in January of this year, and appeared on episode 134 of the RSPA Trusted Advisor podcast in April (Networking and Connectivity VAR Opportunities with BlueStar’s Jim Hilton).
- BlueStar Academy: Piloted in 2025 and launching in Q1 2026, BlueStar Academy offers insights into BlueStar technologies through in-person and online courses. Led by channel veteran Mike Monocello, one of the goals of the program is to help VARs and ISVs “turn your rookies into revenue generators.”
- Demand Lab Marketing Services: Among the services offered to partners are paid social media marketing, video production, targeted outbound marketing, and eBook lead generation.
Korte: “You Are a Mini-Media Company for Your Industry”
BlueStar Director of Marketing James Korte offered his top five tips for LinkedIn, which I’ve found to be a powerful tool for making connections in the retail IT channel:
- Be the face the people see: Post regularly so your name (and your company and your brand) become recognizable. (Personally, I post once or twice per week, and two VARTECH attendees I crossed paths with recognized me before I could introduce myself and said, “I see your stuff on LinkedIn!”)
- Clean up your profile: Ensure your banner, profile headline, and pinned content are updated, accurate, and brand enhancing.
- Build an audience deliberately: Proactively outreach to industry colleagues. Don’t just click “Connect”; be sure to send a personalized note with your connection request.
- Treat LinkedIn like social media: Offer value through stories and other content before promoting your product or making a request.
- Pay attention to the details: Among Korte’s tips were to start posts with a one-line, attention-getting “hook” and to write like you speak.
Rapid-Fire Wisdom: VAR & ISV Leaders Share Their Winning Playbook
I was honored to moderate the leadership breakout “Rapid-Fire Wisdom: VAR & ISV Leaders Share Their Winning Playbook” featuring RSPA members Philip Wegner of ISV TechGrid, Brad Lucas of VAR/ISV Lucas Systems, and Blake Gillum of VAR/ISV DCR POS.
Among the leadership golden nuggets the trio shared were:
- Do the hard things first.
- You won’t make everyone happy with your decisions, so be sure you’re making fact-based decisions.
- Key actions to retain talent include: empowerment, hiring for culture fit (not just skill fit), and reimagining your mission, vision, and values to ensure you remain relevant.
- Small-team structures work best.
- Decentralize as much decision making as possible.
- Before you move forward with a key strategy or action, obtain feedback from a skeptic.
- FAIL = First Act In Learning
