By: Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA
The theme of BlueStar’s VARTECH 2026 partner conference, Sept. 20-22 at the Mohegan Sun Resort in New England, was “Where Builders Gather,” a nod to VARs and ISVs on the frontline constructing solutions.
I drew inspiration from both BlueStar’s solution provider partners and the resort’s rank-and-file staff to produce a new insight into our channel. Let me explain.
Many of the conversations on stage, in the hallways, and in the breakout sessions were about the newest solution provider tool – AI. Everybody I talked with at VARTECH said they need to move faster with AI, but they’ve got installs, upgrades, sales calls, travel, and more keeping them busy.
With that dilemma in mind, to clear my head and boost my heartrate, I took an early morning walk before the final day of VARTECH. During that trek, I serendipitously crossed paths with several Mohegan Sun employees literally running from the parking garage at 5:57 AM to punch in by 6 o’clock. If they got to the time clock late, they’re sure to suffer negative consequences.
It made me think: What are the consequences for VARs and ISVs who don’t pick up the pace related to AI adoption?
Nobody’s threatening to dock their pay or terminate their employment. But they are going to get fired by their customers if a better solution comes along offered by someone else.
Merchants aren’t overtly telling retail IT channel executives who serve them “do better soon or else,” but perhaps we should hustle things up in terms of AI adoption and expertise before they view their trusted advisor as being behind the times.
BlueStar CMO Dean Reverman echoed these sentiments at VARTECH’s opening session, encouraging the nearly 1,500 attendees from 40 countries to embrace AI ASAP. “The tsunami of AI and edge AI is coming,” he said. “We’ve got to up our game around compute, security, and other AI technologies.”
Reverman stressed solution providers won’t have to go it alone on this challenging transition. “Soft POS, frictionless commerce, edge AI, machine vision – all these technologies require an ecosystem,” he said. “The ecosystem has replaced the standard sales model. Nobody builds anything alone.”
Let’s dive into some of the top AI insights I gathered at VARTECH. (I’m more of a gatherer than a builder like you.)
Building AI Into Your Business
The VARTECH main stage panel “Building AI Into Your Business” featured Rob Risany of RSPA member Intel, RSPA Board Advisor Greg Buzek of IHL Group, Lisanne Schliemann of systems integrator Denali, Carl Kallen of logistics solutions provider Lyngsoe, and moderator John Martin of BlueStar.
Among the session’s top comments were:
- “Your customers are rethinking entire processes through the lens of AI. Present your hardware on a level of AI readiness – a barcode scanner is a source of data. Every piece of hardware you share is connected to their AI strategy.” Risany
- “The first step with AI is to delegate some decisions with some guardrails. Measure and determine where to go from there. It’s important to start taking some steps now, even if it’s just QA and coding.” Kallen
- “If you don’t have the right data structure in place, the data generated by AI will create a bunch of noise. We’ve seen success when AI both eliminates work and provides insights.” Schliemann
- “Think about AI like you think about appliances in your home – your dishwasher, your washer and dryer, a robot lawnmower. They get rid of your mundane tasks to free yourself to do more important things. AI can be like that in your business.” Buzek
- “We still need masters of POS. Humans with domain expertise is critical.” Risany
- “Don’t outsource your thinking. Don’t outsource your secret sauce which is your expertise.” Buzek
How Leading RSPA VARs Are Leveraging AI
One of my VARTECH highlights was moderating the breakout panel “How Leading RSPA VARs Are Leveraging AI.” A crowd of nearly 100 heard insights from Scott McClannahan of Simple POS, Blake Gillum of DCR (and RSPA Board Chair), and Buzek.
I recorded the discussion then used AI to transcribe it and call out the top five takeaways. Following the principle taught to me by RSPA member Dennis Wilson (aka “AI Dennis”) of DBC Technologies that “AI + Human = :),” below are the results of that exercise with my light editing.
#1 AI is becoming a core infrastructure for VAR operations. Multiple panelists described AI as something they use throughout the day across sales, marketing, project management, document review, contract analysis, employee management, and customer communications.
#2 The biggest opportunity is creating an AI-powered “second brain” for your business. Build a centralized knowledge repository containing company information, customer history, product expertise, contracts, support knowledge, policies, and meeting notes. Once connected to AI, this institutional knowledge enables faster proposal generation, RFP responses, customer support, onboarding, employee reviews, and executive decision making.
#3 VARs should use AI to strengthen relationships, not replace them. AI works best when it eliminates administrative work so employees can spend more time with customers. Examples included preparing account managers for customer meetings, generating executive summaries of customer issues, and helping leaders better remember client details.
#4 A major revenue opportunity is helping merchants turn data into business intelligence. VARs must evolve from technology installers into advisors who help merchants aggregate data from POS, payments, inventory, security, loyalty, and operational systems. Whether through in-house development or partnerships, VARs that deliver actionable intelligence, predictive analytics, loss prevention insights, inventory optimization, and automated marketing will create new recurring revenue streams and deepen customer relationships.
#5 Start small, establish guardrails, and rethink processes instead of simply adding AI to existing workflows. Identify AI champions and top performers, establish usage policies, protect customer data, and redesign workflows around AI rather than bolting it onto existing processes.
In Conclusion: Leading VARs of the future will not simply sell hardware, software, and support. They will use AI to become strategic advisors to move beyond being technology vendors.
AI-Powered RoloScan Debuts at VARTECH
I love when RSPA members work together. Jerry Abiog of Standard Insights, a frequent presenter at RSPA events about AI and one of the people powering RoloScan, teamed up with BlueStar to provide a new solution to the show’s exhibitors.
RoloScan uses AI to read business cards and badges and turn them into structured contacts in seconds, going above and beyond traditional event lead scanning. Abiog described it as a “pre-CRM” that can integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Outlook to accelerate more genuine connections. The goal is to provide “relationship intelligence” to turn details gathered at events into actionable information.
I caught up with Abiog as VARTECH drew to a close to see how the debut went. He was very happy with the feedback he received and now has a use case – with 1,500 attendees – to build upon. Did I mention that I love when RSPA members work together?
Tech at the Table: Driving Loyalty and Efficiency in Hospitality
AI was the big topic at VARTECH but it wasn’t the only topic. I attended the Day 2 breakout “Tech at the Table: Driving Loyalty and Efficiency in Hospitality” featuring four RSPA member companies: John Lamb of Elo, Mitchell Payne of Posiflex, Josh Stanphill of Epson, and John Maieli of Star Micronics.
Among their top insights to the VAR audience were:
- “You’re consultants beyond just pitching software. You build on the existing infrastructure and improve their workflow.” Payne
- “VARs see themselves as a technology consultant, but maybe you should see yourself as a business consultant. Are the technology and software you’re recommending actually going to grow their business? Merchants need marketing, and there are plenty of third party marketing products you could offer to help them grow.” Stanphill
- “You have to be a specialist to restaurants; QSR (quick-service restaurant) is so different from fine dining. If you don’t show them you’re a specialist, they’ll smell that out right away.” Maieli
- “In hospitality, their recurring revenue is loyalty. Personalization is the key to loyalty with order accuracy second.” Maieli
- “Restaurants have no IT people on staff, so they need technology that can be managed by headquarters. That’s not only the massive chains. Once a restaurant has 10 locations, they need those insights. You have to talk with them and guide them not just on what will work today but on what the future looks like for them over the next few years.” Lamb
- “The correct KDS (kitchen display system) can make a huge difference in a restaurant. Good KDS software times everything for the kitchen, so the restaurant can hire less experienced staff to manage it.” Payne
