IT Industry Leaders: Aaron Woods on Change & Services Revenue Streams

For Aaron Woods, director of Xerox Corp's North American Reseller Relationships and Partnership programs, information technology has been his ticket to a long and satisfying career. But at first, IT was simply his way out of a boring Army job.

Newly enlisted in the Army in 1967, Woods expected to be sent to finance school after basic training. But thanks to a military paperwork snafu, he wound up a clerk typist. “That's not something I wanted to do forever,” Woods recalls. So he signed himself up for a class on repairing automated data processing systems (ADPS).

The yearlong ADPS course was brutal—at one point, Woods was attending class from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m. But soon after completing it, he was stationed in Germany for four years, working in an Army Strategic Communications detachment to protect the secure messaging systems for the Pershing 1 nuclear missiles deployed in Europe. “It was a 365-day, 24-hours-a-day endeavor—very, very interesting,” says Woods.

Upon leaving the army in 1974, Woods worked as a field service technician repairing Brokerage terminals in Chicago's finance markets. That role launched a long career in IT support services.

 Woods worked in progressively more responsible service management roles for Tandy Corp., NEC Home Electronics, Bell & Howell Service Company, industrial automation firm ITT Servcom, computer reseller Intelligent Electronics and testing device manufacturer Tektronix.

In 2000, when Xerox purchased the Computer Printing & Imaging division of Tektronix, Woods joined the Xerox Services team as program manager for its Authorized Service Provider program and continued his rise, becoming director of Xerox's North American Reseller Relationship and Partner Programs in 2009.

Woods holds a bachelor's degree in business management and an MBA in Organizational Communications from Marylhurst (Ore.) University and also his Green Belt certification for Lean Six Sigma (LSS) quality improvement processes. He is also a certified sponsor for LSS projects.

Q. What do you do day-to-day in your job?

My current job is two-fold, tied to relationships and partner programs serving our value-added reseller customers, all small- and medium-sized business. It's is a very senior position within Xerox and very unique because it involves indirect services, and is a focal point between our resellers and Xerox.

In the relationships piece, I work with North American resellers' senior staff to ensure that we're providing everything they need, in terms of services, to support their go-to-market strategies. Whenever the North American Resellers organization introduces a new program, it nearly always has a service piece tied to it.  

With our partner programs, we work with authorized resellers, third-party maintainers and self-service providers who deliver services on Xerox products. We help each become certified on our products to become authorized service providers.  We have over 6,000 certified technicians in 1,100 SMB organizations in North America, including Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico.

Q. How did you get into the IT services industry? What do you like about it?

I've been in it about 28 years. I got into it from the military working with secure messaging processing computers. It was a direct link for me to go out and work in this environment.

In these 28 years, I've had a broad spectrum of not only issues to solve and initiatives to create, but also just across-the-board excitement. IT services is always changing. You never become bored—at least I haven't. There's always something new to explore and learn about. That's why I love it: It's a constantly changing environment.

Q. How do you keep current with the latest trends in your segment of the IT industry?

I read everything that I can: Computerworld and Computerworld This Week, CompTIA SmartBrief, also briefings from Aberdeen Research about service related topics and warranty fraud, and also from Noventum Service Management.

I am incessant reader, but I also get a lot of up-to-date information by being a member of CompTIA and by serving as an executive council member of its IT Services and Support Community.  Interfacing with my peers, listening to them and taking about the same issues that we have, helps me learn what's going on with the trends.

Q. What advice do you have for people who want to get an IT industry job?

First of all, understand what it is you want to do in IT. Fortunately, there's so much information you can pull from the Internet. Use Google. If you are interested in networking, educate yourself on networking as a whole: the different areas of networking and their requirements. If you are interested getting Cisco certified, that's good. But Cisco has many certifications. Which one is best for you and how should you prepare yourself to get it? Also look at the websites of organizations like CompTIA that have information about how to get into a particular career area in IT.

Q. What do you like to do when you're not working?

Cooking is one relaxation for me. Fishing is another. I love to fish for salmon and steelhead. I like to fish on the Columbia River several times a year. I have yet to catch a steelhead, though. It's a very elusive fish.

Also my wife and I like to travel—to Colorado to visit the kids and grandkids, to Chicago to visit family. We enjoy any place new. Next year we're going to Panama.

Q. What's the biggest challenge in the services industry right now?  What's its biggest opportunity?

The challenges that we have today are trying to keep up with all of the things that are changing within the industry. The cloud is one of the biggest things that touches on all areas in the IT environment, including services. The emphasis on certifications is shifting—it's no longer as frequently required by OEMs; it's more a self-improvement tool for individual IT workers. Also social media: How do we use Facebook or Twitter within our own organizations? How should I use social media with my authorized service providers? How do we implement social media into customer service/customer satisfaction? And then there's BYOD, “Bring Your Own Device” — how do we integrate that into our services within our own group?

Personally, I do believe that having at least one or two certifications—particularly the CompTIA PDI+, CompTIA A+ or CompTIA Network+ credentials—is important, not only to an individual's self-esteem, but also from a knowledge standpoint. The more you equip yourself with information, the more valuable you will be to your employer and to yourself.

Finally, there's no money in the (IT hardware) box today, so it's important for the SMBs to understand how they can maximize their service revenue stream and to spend the needed dollars to put those programs into place.

Q. As an originator of the CompTIA A+ certification, what do you think of the new 800 series CompTIA A+ exams due to launch this fall?

From what I've seen, it's the right direction. It clearly includes those components that are going to help a technician be really well rounded with the basic skill sets. It will provide a comfort level to consumers and employers that a technician can support their products in a professional manner.