Growth is the driving factor of every business and for that a suitable alliance is highly required to flourish further. Corporates are always on a hunt for an appropriate partner to expand its business.
A partner program is extremely essential for both corporates and partners to push boundaries and achieve success. Partner programs are different for every company and it depends on various factors like their size, volume and expertise. Every year, corporates spend a major chunk of money to grow partner business.
A simple and transparent partner program has always been a desire for the IT partner ecosystem. Companies chalk out their unique partner program every year with a vision of extending their footprint, acquiring new customers etc. Few corporates follow the global agenda and few customize partner programs according to the needs of its partners in different regions by embracing partnership and collaboration strategy for its development.
Partner program is a tool to empower its partners so that they can leverage the technological expertise of a company to accelerate the growth. On the other hand riding on the back of the partners, the corporates leverage partner’s competencies and resources to deliver its business transformation goals. It is true that partners are a major contributor to the company’s revenue.
Ashish Sikka, Director- Channel and SMB, Lenovo India
“As our current situation seems to be extremely dynamic, it would be inappropriate to make any long-term strategy for the future of businesses. However, we at Lenovo, are 100% dedicated to listening, taking action and improving to build a true win-win partnership. With most of Lenovo’s shipments coming through our channel partners, we are driven to equip our partners in the fight to stay relevant, as well as future proof their business. As a part of this, we have launched a few partner programs out of which we recently introduced the AP Lenovo Partner Program to streamline all engagement and operations with our channel partners into one single platform. This portal provides useful sales and management tools, as well as training and marketing content, allowing our channel partners to experience how Lenovo adds value to the partnership with just a single log-in.
We at Lenovo, understand their challenges and provide extensive and customized programs, from incentives to rebates to co-marketing to help channel partners sell more and reap greater rewards, gain expertise, and receive support.
There are several challenges we are facing presently. Channel partners in India cited that their biggest challenge is how margin pressures are impacting their profitability in the current scenario. Hence, we have we have put in place some of the measures for our channel partners, enabling them to align in the right direction and this year’s partner programs are mainly focused on tackling these challenges by providing extensive and customized programs. Also, this year, we focus on the programs that are different in several ways to encourage BP to drive a right mix of PC, Services and S&P attach depending on customer requirement.
We are aiming to grow faster than the market. Strong and loyal channel base will help us capitalize the new opportunity that is getting created due to changing business requirement like WFM and PC penetration due to growing online communication.”
Som Satsangi, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) India’s MD
“India has come a long way in enabling remote work, thanks to innovation, and much of this is possible today because of the mobile and data revolution of the past decade.
“We are prioritising the things that are within our control protecting our team members and their families, focusing on innovation and efforts to support our customers, and rising to the challenge of supporting the communities where we live and work.
We are focused on helping customers and partners maintain business continuity, manage cash flow and financial health and are deploying solutions to meet immediate challenges and unexpected demand.
Business continuity is a vital focus area for our enterprise customers who cut across several verticals including banking, insurance, telecom, chemicals, oil and gas, state and central governments, and so on. Several of these organisations have mature IT practices.
HPE has robust business continuity plans and with the activation of HPE Crisis Management Team in place we are confident we will mitigate disruptions, meet partner and customer demands, and protect HPE team members. We are working closely with more than 200 suppliers to continue to minimise the impact on partners and customers.
To help manage cash flow and financial health, HPE’s Financial Services arm (which is an IT captive finance company, managing $13 billion in portfolio assets in more than 50 countries) can help. We are also releasing capital from existing infrastructure, providing pre-owned tech equipment to relieve capacity strains or delivery delays.
We recently announced that we would defer or reduce expenses through payment deferral, so customers can delay payments for 90 days. Through the 2020 Payment Relief Program, customers can pay only 1 percent of the total contract value each month for the first eight months, deferring over 90 percent of the cost until 2021. This can help businesses navigate the financial impact of Covid-19 in the short term.”
Murli Mohan, Vice President, UiPath India
“The global outbreak of COVID - 19 has pushed organizations, today, to fast track their digital transformation and has given rise to new opportunities to reimagine work and business continuity. We recently conducted a joint study with Zinnov on the adoption of automation by Indian enterprises which clearly showed that Hyper Intelligent Automation (HIA) will become key to accelerate outcomes in the wake of COVID-19.
We, at UiPath, believe that only with strong partnerships to scale training, expedite deployment, and innovate new solutions, can we seize these opportunities and deliver value to our customers. The UiPath Partner Program is designed to accelerate our partner’s ability to guide their customers through their digital transformation, preparing them for the future of work. We also support them to leverage the platform internally to help reinvest their core services and achieve workforce gains, co-develop innovative new services solutions that exploit RPA capabilities, guide themselves and their clients on how best to leverage RPA with a Center of Excellence, and deploy RPA solutions as part of a broader business process optimization initiative. Our Partner Program also provides easier access to information and tools, at-the-ready marketing, sales and technical resources, campaigns and event kits. In addition to this, we also provide transparency and standardization around benefits, requirements, and constant support from our customer success team. In the coming year, we will continue to support our integrated partner ecosystem by upskilling them with our learning platform called Academy for Partners.”
Anil Sethi, Vice President & General Manager, Channels, Dell Technologies, India
“The India region, in the past year, emerged as one of the largest channel regions for Dell Technologies and we have been consistent with our channel strategies, which are very critical for us and our partner’s success. We are fully committed to supporting the partner community navigate through the changing environment. Our world-class partner program, we drive our Simple, Predictable and Profitable message, to position it as the best program in the market, providing superior value to the channel partners. Given the ongoing situation, the priorities were strategically modified to help our partners evolve and meet the business goals. In order to help the channel partner community continue to serve their customers better, we recently announced ‘Partner Relief Package’, to provide financial relief. Information technology is become more specialized and requires Partners and OEMs to build expertize, leading to a shift in the partner ecosystem.
In addition to technology needs, our customers and partners have been vocal about their need for financial support in the current environment. The Global Dell Financial Services (DFS) team listened and responded with the new Payment Flexibility Program (PFP). One of the best in the industry, the program offers more choice and predictability for our customers. The Program is built on the strong foundation of DFS and our end-to-end portfolio. Dell has also announced $9B in financing available this year to cater to their critical technology needs. We are committed to helping our customers and partners drive business continuity in this new normal. Dell Technologies has always focused on raising the bar towards its promise of delivering a simple, predictable, profitable partner program. Our FY20 partner program focused on making it easier for partners to achieve gold status and also introduced a simplified market development funds (MDF) process.
The strategy and plan for FY21 needed an upliftment, given the ongoing scenario. Partners are looking up to us to maintain business continuity and to mitigate fluid situations. Financial support and capital are of utmost importance for our partners to adapt to the rapidly changing environment. Many of our partners needed help in this area to device a strong plan as they try to serve their customers better. Keeping this outlook in mind, we recently announced ‘Partner Relief Package’, with the intent of providing immediate financial relief to our metal partners. It is helping them to strengthen their capabilities and build pipeline for the future. In addition to this, Dell Technologies Working Capital Solutions (WCS) Program is working on ways to continue supporting our partners, to help them support their customers. We are also introducing new team-based pricing options for solutions providers to make all training more affordable for our partners’ teams.
• MDF (Marketing Development Funds) validity extended till end-July 2020 – thus giving partners more time to plan and execute (up to 3 months more than the current 6 months window)
• Option of advance withdrawal – up to 50% of their earned MDF – to ease cash flow
• Free training and certifications – for solution deployment capabilities
• Digital Marketing Tool – enabling partners to execute Digital Marketing – the best tool in current contact-less economy to run customer outreach marketing activities
• Attractive Working Capital Solutions – minimizing the financial burden and working capital pressure for partners – when they transact with Dell.”
Manish Alshi, Director, Partner Sales, VMware
“VMware launched its new partner program, VMware Partner Connect on February 29th, 2020, which is a new, dramatically simplified, and flexible program designed to enable partners to do business with VMware in a way that aligns with their business models under a single, unified contract. The program empowers partners with the flexibility to meet customer needs, making VMware technologies and services opportunities more accessible. Partners now have an enhanced experience that delivers simplicity, choice, and innovation, while recognizing and rewarding partners based on the value they bring to customers. The new VMware Partner Connect program has been welcomed and widely appreciated by our Partner community.
VMware Partner Connect reiterates our commitment to dramatically improve the partner experience, helping them drive customer success and digital transformation. Designed to deliver simplicity, choice, and innovation, Partner Connect aligns with our Partners’ business model so that they can optimize profitability. While the earlier partner program was a cluster of multiple programs focused on resell-based transactions, the new Partner Connect Program brings in an increased strategic focus on value delivery across the full customer lifecycle.
The program was developed by a cross-functional team representing a broad set of perspectives incorporating both, VMware internal teams as well as partner teams. The Partner Advisory Council continues to provide feedback regarding various aspects of the program. VMware Partner Connect offers a simplified, consistent experience designed to provide clearer paths to our partners towards profitability, whether they want to resell software or services, manage or host services, or provide value-add services to their customers.
There are three key Incentive and Investment Programs within Partner Connect: Advantage+, Solution Rewards, and Development Funds.
• Advantage+: VMware’s sales incentives program to drive bookings, pipeline visibility and deal advantage
• Solution Rewards: VMware’s back-end rebate program focused on rewarding partners who have demonstrated their dedication to selling and delivering VMware solutions
• Development Funds: VMware’s pre-sales investment to drive incremental demand and increase strategic partners’ capacity and for VMware technologies
The new Partner Connect program rewards partners for growing their business, achieving solution competencies & master services competencies, and progressing to Advanced or Principal tiers within the Partner Connect Program. Incentive eligibility is determined and applied by the program tier level, market maturity, and business model.”
Debasish Mukherjee, VP, Regional Sales – APAC, SonicWall
“For the year 2020-21, we will continue making our headway in the enterprise market along with immense focus on the expansion of our channel partner program. We will be working towards adding greater capabilities and intelligence to our partner community and collaborating with them to chart out our business plans. We are also investing in:
• Sales and technical resources to assist our partners find more opportunities
• Channel enablement tools and content to keep our partners up to date on the latest SonicWall innovations
• Innovative products and technologies to continuously improve our offerings
SonicWall recently unveiled an enhanced version of its SecureFirst Managed Security Service Provider (MSSPs) Program to provide the licensing models, resources and tools needed to help MSSPs profitably scale and accelerate their managed security services business, leveraging SonicWall’s award-winning technology. In India, this program will commence from June 2020.
Built on the SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program, the enhanced three-tiered MSSP program offers benefits such as flexible pricing options, tailored premier technical support access, access to MSSP field sales and technical specialists, increased access to co-marketing funds as well as specialization training and assessments for sales and technical staff.
Due to the unprecedented need to quickly and efficiently deploy security to rapidly expanding remote workforces, SonicWall will include its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) solution for MSSPs, allowing managed security service providers to swiftly deploy and scale on-demand security and connectivity at costs based on the number of concurrent users.
Specific to the MSSP program tiers MSSP Protect, MSSP Powered, MSSP Powered Plus partners will be offered new program benefits including:
• Expanded annual and monthly pricing model licenses
• Aggressive volume-based pricing based on assets under management
• Priority access to Premier Support tier 3 engineers
• Increased access to MDF, including accruals for Powered Plus partners
• Support from a new and expanding MSSP strategic account management team, globally
• Addition of Secure Mobile Access (SMA) to MSSP portfolio
Participating MSSPs will continue to be required to meet annual revenue requirements, have an operating NOC or SOC with Help Desk L1/L2 support capabilities, as well as sales and technical staffing criteria. Authorized MSSPs will need to be established in the SecureFirst program at the Silver level or above.”
Neeraj Bhatia, Director - Channel and Partner Alliances, Red Hat India and South Asia
“Our partners play a significant role in our go-to-market strategy and our overall success. Year over year, our partners have brought invaluable ability and resources for the benefit of our customers by being true ambassadors of Red Hat and our enterprise open source solutions, from automation to hybrid cloud infrastructure, Openshift based containerisation and beyond.
In response to the current events, we have been working on identifying new ways to help our customers and partners to navigate the challenges and forge a path forward. Our approach is to meet our customers wherever they are in their journey - whether it is adopting a virtual-first footing or scaling up to make remote workforce productive. Open source exists for times like these, working together to solve shared problems is fundamental to our business. These current challenges are unfamiliar and new to all of us. As we embrace new ways of working, we believe that open source and subscription based models will become more appealing for customers.
It has been established that organizations who have been adopting agile methodology, optimised infrastructure like automation, devops, mobility built on hybrid cloud, are better prepared to operate effectively during these unprecedented times. The requirements of social distancing and the need for restricted movement has further accelerated the adoption of automation by organizations across verticals to continue day-to-day operations. In line with this, below are some of the initiatives we have undertaken for our partners:
â— We have launched Ansible Automation Platform Certified Partner program to help our partners build automation practice and capitalize on growing adoption of hybrid / multi cloud by customers. The program entails several benefits for partners including increased rebates.
â— Our existing partner programs like Red Hat Partner Connect , Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider program, and Red Hat OpenShift Practice Builder Program are already designed to help partners meet customer needs for cloud based technologies, containerized application development and platforms.
â— In order to create awareness around our SMB business, we initiated an exclusive program called Red Hat Baazigar (partner incentive program) for select partner representatives to drive new business opportunities for Red Hat.
â— Red Hat Training & Certification is delivering live virtual training classes, extended timelines for using Red Hat Training Units and the exam window by three months for those who are not in position to cancel or reschedule previously scheduled classes or exams.”
Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Director, Aruba India
“Aruba partners include distributors, resellers, managed services providers, and OEM partners for whom we have a partner program initiative known as “Partner Ready for Networking”.
Distributors can have the full portfolio of Aruba products and services to distribute. They earn rebates based on what they resell, and depending on various factors.
Managed service providers (MSP), service providers (SP) and system integrators (SI) are partners recognised with different business model. MSP/SP/SI generally is the asset owners of our technology who deliver “As a Service” to the customers in single tenant and multi-tenant solutions.
OEM partners integrate HPE and Aruba products with their own intellectual property to deliver a unique value proposition as part of the go-to-market strategy. This has resulted in an ecosystem of partners utilizing HPE and Aruba innovations.
Over the last 12 months, we have delivered both consumption and subscription options for partners to resell and/or to use as-a-service. Combining our complete portfolio of products, services and financial offerings, partners have a greater array of options to buy, consume and pay for network needs including HPE GreenLake for Aruba, a subscription service where the campus or corporate network is used and paid for on a predictable payment plan over a period of 3 or 5 years.
In response to COVID-19, HPE recently provided additional benefits to partners that include:
• Rebates - HPE and Aruba has made it easier for partners to earn rebates.
• Settlement incentives - Aruba is offering early settle incentives for partners, encouraging them to take advantage of this incentive to improve their working capital and cash positions.
• Extended Credit & Early Settlement Terms – We have provided up to 60 day credit terms in May with enhanced early settlement incentives being offered for payments from May through July for distributors.
• HPE Partner Ready Programs Revenue Threshold Suspension - To provide stability for partners facing financial uncertainty, HPE has suspended the revenue threshold targets required for current partners to maintain their equivalent status for 2021 eligibility.
• HPE Financial Services (HPEFS) offerings - HPEFS is enabling resellers to recommend to their customers these offerings to reduce their financial risks (available in all countries except Vietnam and AEC), which include:
o Payment Relief Program (defer >90% of the cost until 2021)
o Support to convert existing IT assets into capital including a buy back scheme
o A new payment deferral option is available on new technology purchases
o A phased deployment program that allows them to acquire compute and storage capacity now with the flexibility to configure, test, and stand up systems before paying
o Short Term Rental of pre-owned HPE technology to empower a remote working set up (available in selected countries for data center assets only).”
Harshavardhan Kathaley, Director, Channel Sales (India & SAARC), Juniper Networks
“For Juniper and our partners, customers are at the center of everything that we do. Our mission has been to build a strong partner ecosystem to be able to help our customers succeed and together with our partners, become part of customer’s success stories. To that end, Juniper’s partner program has evolved over the years to support and fulfill the technology innovation to deliver Juniper solutions through our partners. At its core, the program is simplified yet covers all the aspects of Skillset & certifications, Marketing & demand creation, business acceleration tools, sales enablement and most importantly profits & rewards for our partners.
An overview of Juniper’s enhanced partner program provides:
New specialisations: With Juniper’s recent acquisition of Mist Systems, the new joint Juniper-Mist Specialisation enables partners to deliver AI solutions into the enterprise, while the new SaaS and managed services specialisations are designed to incent and enable partner transformation into recurring revenue models. Partners can choose their specialisation based on their competitive differentiation and unique business models. Following is the list of various specialisations available for our partners - Security, Routing, Data Center, AI Access – Mist, Cloud Software, Services, Managed Services
Incentives and rewards: New incentive programs are designed to help partners who are co-investing with Juniper to grow their enterprise business: incentives focused on driving growth of Mist and Juniper solutions and paying double-digit rebates on growth technologies such as software, cloud and SD-WAN. Additionally, Juniper is making incremental investments in partners who invest in building technical, sales and service expertise in Juniper technologies. As our partners stack up their specialisations, they earn stackable rebates.
Demand creation: Juniper is providing programs and campaigns, as well as joint marketing funds, to create a demand for new business and to expand existing accounts. Our partners have access to on-demand, customised and turn-key marketing campaigns focused on differentiated product solutions and targeted vertical segments in the enterprise.
Sales enablement: To help partners upskill in emerging areas like AI, cloud, wired assurance and managed services, Juniper is providing a new sales enablement curriculum to accelerate partner success.
Given the ongoing outbreak, there will be an accelerated focus and more investments in the healthcare sector, throughout every aspect of that industry – from hospitals to pharmaceutical companies, to essential commodities production and distribution, to retail and e-commerce, among others. The government is expected to lead this charge in India, followed by the private sector.
Furthermore, ISPs have witnessed unprecedented increase in demand due to the recent work-from-home practices, which is also expected to have an impact on future work culture. Just like work-from-home; there shall be back-to-office scenarios leading to a need for implementation of SOPs e.g. Contact tracing-inside the premises, social distancing alert systems etc. Juniper’s AI enabled solutions are already being examined by customers for these applications.
Cloud adoption will continue to gaining further momentum to provide opportunities right from Data Center build or expansion to multi-cloud rollout and management.”
Nick Tidd, Vice President - Global Channel Sales, Poly
“Recently, we launched a new Poly partner program – we have reimagined our program to encourage participation from a broad range of partners and made it more beneficial to partner with Poly. Our partners consistently tell us that their success depends on their ability to differentiate based on reputation, service delivery capability, and complementary skills. Our goal is to help all partners successfully stand out in the market.
The new program, which brings together more than 15,000 partners around the world between Plantronics and Polycom, is designed so partners of all sizes can more easily deliver the most compelling and customized solutions to their customers.
The Poly partner program shifts the evaluation of partner levels from a focus on revenue to an emphasis on involvement with Poly to support innovation and mutual growth. The model is built around three categories:
• Capabilities, ensuring a deep knowledge base through training and enablement;
• Commitment, a demonstrated focus and investment in Poly; and
• Contribution, which expands beyond just revenue and provides opportunities for bonuses for our partners. Additional benefits include a single instance of deal registration, performance dashboards, and a real-time scorecard to make it easier to track partner standing.
Additional features of the Poly partner program include:
• A new Poly partner portal launching on April 10 which will replace Polycom Partner Connect and Plantronics Plantro.net. The portal offers an interactive and collaborative space to easily connect partners to Poly, support technical expertise, sales, marketing, and continuous real-time learning.
• The Poly partner portal will also provide a comprehensive library of images, marketing assets and co-brandable templates so partners can effectively and efficiently market to customers.
• Poly University provides a full suite of curriculum by specialty to help partners satisfy certification and specialization requirements as well as elective learning. A robust certification program provides individual sales and pre-sales training in various product and service categories.
• Sales tools offer customer testimonials, videos, promotions and a demo discount program to help drive business.
Poly’s new partner program offers new tools, business opportunities and a refreshing business mindset for the Polycom and Plantronics partners,
Poly Partner Program and Portal Registration
All Polycom and Plantronics partners will receive access to the Poly partner portal on April 10, 2020, which will be available in North America, EMEA and APAC regions. Other interested partners may register here to become a Poly partner today.”
Lata Singh, Executive Director IBM Partner Ecosytem & CSI, India/South Asia
"Theworld is dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and number of our clients and partners have had to re-evaluate their IT strategy in the short and medium term. IBM is committed to support our clients via multiple digital platforms of engagement in these times of social distancing. We have launched a special set of offerings to cater to the increased demand for Cloud solutions, Cybersecurity, Remote Workforce and Business Continuity Planning and some specifically to assist our channel business partners.
IBM is offering an extended financial stimulus package for our customers through IBM Global Financing. IBM Systems globally has added millions of dollars into the incentive portfolio which will be available for distributors and all partners in India. The Q2 performance incentive for Power and Storage has been increased. The funding for eligible digital co-marketing activities in Q2 has been increased from 50% to 100%. Clients will be given option to pay in quarterly installments at zero percent interest for any hardware purchases in Q2 subject to terms & conditions.
We have suspended CVR Sales / Sales Assist, CVR Solution revalidation for 2020 allowing partners’ additional time to prepare and complete necessary testing. The revalidation grace period for IBM Partnerworld program has been extended from May 5, 2020 to January 1, 2021 so that partners will not decrease in program level or lose a competency during this time. IBM provides resources to plan/prospect and progress leads, run a digital workshopwith the Digital Technical Engagement team and incentives if the workshop is done with a client. We are providing access to key virtual selling tools, remote training tools, guidance and resources to make sure learning never stops. My Digital Marketingis the new digital marketing platform which IBM launched in Feb for our partners to quickly access an array of 'ready-to-execute' digital campaigns. With it partners will be able to plan, personalize, execute and measure their next digital marketing campaign, and identify what does and doesn’t work as our lines of communications shift to more virtual channels. We provide 24/7 access to solution demos, webinars and more at IBM Virtual Client Center. IBM has launched a special 90-day software offerings and trials at no cost for Cloud & Cognitive Softwareand defined a distinct set of focus solutions for IBM Power, IBM Security, IBM Storage, IBM Z and LinuxONEthat will help both partners and customers. We will continue to push more content to the Seismicplatform - a central repository for all sales enablement materials on demand - with additional programmatic digital enablement sessions. Business Partner Connectoffers both IBM and Red Hat partners the ability to discover new collaboration opportunities, by leveraging Watson's matching technology to help find the right tools for shifting business needs.IBM digital badges and professional certifications are now available on IBM Skills Gateway.
Since we have a strong services team we are sharing with our partners details on our service offerings as well as best practices. Partners looking to expand their service offerings can seek advice from our experts as well as take the IBM service offerings to their Clients. We are also keen that our partners leverage IBM Cloud for their client needs from bare metal to SaaS offerings. On top of it all, we are hosting the IBM Think 2020and PartnerWorld conference digitally on May 5-6. It will be an exciting combination of live streamed content, interactive sessions and certifications, highlighting IBM’s technology and industry expertise for Business Partners and developers. The focus on building skills on solutions for the post COVID time remains most important."
Kaushal Veluri, Director – Channel Ecosystem, NetApp India
“A few months back, the question on new partner programs would have been answered differently. With the advent of COVID 19, this is a testing time for the entire ecosystem.
As businesses slowly come back to normal over the next few months, cash flow is a significant issue for our partners. To help address these challenges, NetApp is currently extending partner credit terms by 30 days for direct purchasing partners (distributors and direct resellers), extending eligibility for achievement in partner growth programs, delaying our next compliance review by three months and extending all certification expiries by six months.
As we look to the future, supporting our partners as they discuss their customer imperatives in the “new normal” is our core priority.
NetApp’s Partner programs have focussed on three tenets of Simplicity, Acquisition & Knowledge and helping partners with initiatives in alignment with these strategies.
We have made it simpler for our partners to earn the rebates they are eligible for by making the process claimless. This has helped our partners to focus on market outreach and customer acquisition without worrying about missing out on rebates. This simplicity met with great response from our customers.
To help our partners acquire new customers, we expanded our marketing support to help them with their demand generation activities through initiatives like Marketing Concierge where they can seek help to run an integrated marketing campaign. At the same time, we support partners through back end rebates for acquiring new to NetApp customers and competitive customers through our Run-to-NetApp programs.
As we embrace the new normal due to the COVID-19 pandemic, vendors will need to provide customers innovative, flexible technologies with the choice of how to use and consume these technologies to meet evolving business requirements.
Achieving this simplicity will be the foundation for companies as they look for growth opportunities in the new world
• Buying patterns are shifting as customers brace themselves for the workload demands on critical applications. The need of the hour is to support remote workers with End-user computing (EUC) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions for wide-scale deployments without sacrificing performance while making data and applications available and ensuring optimal performance.
o With 5G we see AI-driven IoT becoming a reality, edge computing environments are also primed to become even more disruptive than cloud was. In preparation for the widespread emergence of 5G, maturing AI applications and lower-cost sensors will be leveraged to build compute-intensive edge environments, laying the groundwork for high bandwidth, low latency AI-driven IoT environments with the potential for huge innovation
o The adoption of hybrid multicloud as the de-facto architecture for enterprise customers has led to tremendous pressure to modernise the infrastructure and deliver tangible business value around data-intensive applications and workloads
o Hardware-based Composable Architecture will have less short-term potential against commodity hardware and software-based Infrastructure Virtualisation. Majority of organisations that need to transform within 2020 will be best-served by the combination of modern HCI architectures (including disaggregated HCI) and software-based virtualization and containerisation.
NetApp has always recognized that our success depends on the success of our partners and that we can all accomplish more by working together than we ever could on our own.”
Sameer Bhatia, Director of Asia Pacific Consumer Business Group and Country Manager for SAARC & India, Seagate Technology
"We have been seeing a strong and continuous growth in India, not only on the consumer side but also enterprise. Our leadership position in storage space in the country has been possible with the constant support of our distributors and channel partners. Working towards our partners’ business success across all the cities in India is one of the key focus areas for us at Seagate each day. We believe in nurturing our partner ecosystem by understanding their needs and guiding them with all the product knowledge and tools to enable their success in competitive environment. We connect with our customers and partners in the markets through the Seagate Insider partner program. This year, we will continue to focus on providing comprehensive training sessions and seminars as well as working on co-marketing initiatives to better identify evolving opportunities in the changing norms currently.
With the emergence of IT 4.0, our focus for this year is to help partners drive profitability by enabling them to embrace and monetize the new opportunities around edge computing and artificial intelligence (AI). We connect with our customers and partners in the markets through the Seagate Insider partner program. In addition to regular products and technology trainings, Seagate also provides its partners to better understand evolving opportunities.
Our India-market specific SkyHawk Partner App is a great example of how we empower our partners and customers. The total downloads of the app are now nearly 13,500 from 10,000 users in late November 2019 – a 35% increase in over four months. The total app registrations also increased from over 4,000 users in November 2019 to over 5,600 users now.
This year we also redesigned and opened a hi-tech Lacie Showroom in March to provide better tech experience to our customers.
With the increase in the number of connected devices there has been an exceptional growth in the creation and consumption of data. We believe that the next wave of data growth will come from “embedded devices”, and with the advent of IT 4.0, our focus is on helping partners drive profitability by enabling them to embrace and monetize the new opportunities around edge computing and artificial intelligence (AI).
As mentioned earlier, with the growing business opportunities, our focus continues to be on engaging with the partners and distributors network. Our channel ecosystem continues to grow in numbers and reach as we better understand evolving opportunities and double down on our efforts to engage with our partners and customers more closely than ever.”
Amarish Karnik, Director – Channel Sales, Alliance (India & SAARC), Veeam
“We at Veeam are committed to enabling our partners with the right set of tools, resources, and opportunities to ensure business continuity for our customers. As a reflection of the commitment, we launched Veeam PartnerPerks Program earlier this year. The entire program is designed to build trusting and long-lasting relationships that result in meeting the demands of our customers, repeat transactions, encourage focused products and solutions adoption. At the same time, also rewarding our partners for their focused approach towards boosting sales and ensuring Veeam solutions reach the market faster. Veeam also launched the enhanced Veeam Accredited Services Partner (VASP) programme in 2019 to strengthen its partners’ capabilities to sell, deploy and support Veeam solutions, and ensure customer satisfaction.
We are a 100% channel centric company and for the year 2020-21, we will continue to help partners at every sales stage. Right from the opportunity generation, to doing proof of concept and to deal closures, we help partners build extensive profitable portfolio by enabling competencies at partner place. In addition to that, we help partners talk industry/vertical specific language which enables us to achieve better business acceleration and velocity. With the programs like PartnerPerks, we will continue our efforts in enabling our customers across industries to have uninterrupted access to data, at all times, with the right set of Veeam Backup and Recovery solutions.
We are expecting unique challenges and opportunities for our channel partners as there is likely to be change in revenue models at the customers end. There will be a robust requirement to develop different sales models to stay relevant to our customers. Below are the top three opportunities that the channel community should prepare for in the coming time:
a) Need for data mobility and portability will fuel Cloud Data Management adoption: Businesses are going through a monumental change at the moment and are looking for new methods of making data more portable within their organization and it can only be achieved through a robust CDM strategy. This change is leading them to look at cloud data management (CDM) to ensure the availability of data across all storage environments, including private, public and hybrid cloud. The channel community must leverage the demand for CDM as an opportunity to go to the market with scalable solutions.
b) Pay-as-you-go model over CapEx purchases: The current business environment is shifting the IT spending to a pay-as-you-go model over CapEx purchases. Business are opting for cloud-friendly consumption models, where they only pay for what they use, when they use it.
c) Organisations will replace, not refresh, backup solutions: The trend towards replacement of backup technologies over augmentation will gather pace. Businesses will prioritise simplicity, flexibility and reliability of their business continuity solutions as the need to accelerate technology deployments becomes even more critical. The channel community must be agile to respond to this trend in 2020.”
Jitendra Ghughal, Director Channels, India & SAARC, Fortinet
“Customers need strategic counsel and guidance more than ever now to navigate through new challenges brought about by the current reality. As organizations transform their networks, security plays a critical role and also needs to evolve to keep up with new business demands.
Recognizing this Fortinet has designed new enablement initiatives and specializations, allowing partners to take advantage of digital innovations and the changing business landscape. The recently announced Engage Partner Program provides greater flexibility on partner engagement with Fortinet, offers customized support to partners’ business models and allows partners to specialize in emerging areas through tailored training and certifications.
Expanding Partner Opportunities Through New Partner Program
Fortinet’s Engage partner program addresses the required technology and sales skills needed from new network ecosystems, such as next-gen branch offices and dynamic cloud environments comprised of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. The new program is based on three main concepts, including:
• Specializations: Partners are able to select an area of specialization to receive additional support and benefits in their chosen areas. These include: Dynamic Cloud, Secure Access and Branch, Secure SD-WAN and Data Center. Customized training and certifications are available for each of these specializations to help partners upskill in emerging areas, further enabling partners to capitalize on growth opportunities.
• Business Model: Fortinet offers specialized support for partners that fit the following three business models: MSSP partners, Market Place partners and Traditional Integrator partners. By offering customized support for these unique business models, Fortinet is evolving its partner program to further embrace growing business areas such as the selling of managed services.
• Engagement: Partners have greater flexibility when determining the level of engagement they want to have with Fortinet. They’re able to select the type of expertise they want developed, the benefits and the revenue stream. This allows partners to select how they want to work with Fortinet to grow their business. As a result, there are four new levels of partnership outlined in the program ranging from Fortinet Advocate, Fortinet Select, Fortinet Advance and Fortinet Expert.
The new partner program is designed to provide an expanded set of benefits to partners, such as training and certification so they can leverage a wider range of Fortinet consumption models. This not only enables partners to better meet the dynamic and expanding needs of customers it also enhances their ability to “land and expand.” With the new Fortinet program a single opportunity can be easily expanded to a long-term relationship.
When partners are armed with a broad portfolio of integrated solutions, tools, and platforms available in any form factor, and solutions designed to operate natively in and between any networked environments, they have the opportunity to radically change the nature of relationship with their customer. And significantly expand business and revenue opportunities.
Building on our investment in our partners, the new program offers specializations, updated enablement initiatives and tailored support for unique business models to further partner success.”
Jaganathan Chelliah, Director, Marketing, Western Digital India
“We continue to reinvent the way we work with our partners, considering the current environment, we are heavily focused communicating digitally with our partners and helping them further communicate with their customers in a best and most effective way. Our rewards initiatives and programs are uniquely designed for each set of channel partners to help them grow, maximize profitability, and, most importantly, delight their customers.
Western Digital works to create an environment for data to thrive and continues to make constant efforts for its channel partners to get robust insights into the technologies, product design etc. using an app-based training module for channel partners called TechTalk. The organisation is committed to its partners' growth and success in today’s volatile and dynamic environment. We also use the WhatsApp business platform to engage with channel partners and stay connected. The platform allows us to communicate easily from understanding their queries to resolving them and understanding the market trends observed. Channel partners are encouraged to use the platform and are constantly rewarded via our reward initiatives. While the mindset is what we roll out from our programs is to give the partners an opportunity.
Partners recognize the value that Western Digital brings along with the product portfolio. Appended are various partner programs planned for the year WhatsApp for Business - To engage in constant communication with our partners we use the WhatsApp business platform. The platform allows us to communicate easily from understanding their queries to resolving them and understanding the market trends observed.
TechTalk - An app-based training module for channel partners that provide them with robust insights into the technologies, product design etc. It provides them training modules on different products of eight-minute followed by a quiz and then they have a leaderboard, accordingly, everybody gets rewarded. SanDisk League of Heroes (SLH) - SLH is created for recognizing and rewarding the best performing channel partners in the consumer segment. Each quarter represents a mission consisting of a number of stars that can earn the partners attractive rewards. The SLH program consists of rewards, booster rewards, and medallions that can earn exciting prizes.
Western Digital Elite Partner Promo - This program is for enterprise SIs and VARs who provide complete storage solutions to the customers. It is an annualized rewards program with quarterly rewards based on performance for the channel partners who sell Western Digital Ultrastar HDDs, SSDs and storage platforms and server portfolio that includes our JBOD, JBOFs, Ultrastar Serv24-A, and Ultrastar Serv60+8. myWD Partner Program - myWD Partner Program is a highly successful rewards program that engages with partners within the IT and surveillance channel. Under this campaign, ~6000 partners participate under a timebound, two-way communication-based rewards platform and get trained on select, WD-branded products.”
Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India
“COVID-19 has changed the framework of our work, the way we approach to the partners and the customers as well. However, being one of the top ICT companies and a global PC brand, Acer believes in the growth of our channel partners on two aspects – innovation and upskilling. As always, we believe in supporting them by introducing new innovative and interactive measures. To offer the best to our channel partners and customers during this challenging time, we have come up with an Omni-channel solution. This will help our partners serve their customers with an integrated experience by connecting at multiple touch points to provide a seamless experience to the customers. The customers also have an option of getting their products home delivered keeping social distancing in mind. The service comes with a unified and contextual customer experience through Acer e-store platform.
The lockdown has created a rush of remote working culture across, we are seeing a spike in the demand for laptops, PCs, monitors, and other peripherals at Acer. Whether it’s an organisation or an educational institution, we can see that remote working and online learning has emerged as the new normal. In addition to this, many people have been pushed behind doors and therefore, a huge chunk of people are engaging in online gaming as well. In fact, gaming has also become a viable career option for many of the folks across. Hence, we are observing a surge in gaming devices and accessories. To cater to this increasing need, we are focusing on our supply chain and are looking to fulfil orders as quickly as possible. As an organization, we are also looking at up-skilling ourselves as per the ongoing situation so that the current catastrophe can be turned into an opportunity wherein, we emerge more productive and stay ahead of the situation.”
Sanjay Zadoo, Country Manager Channel, Vertiv
“Vertiv partner programs are focused on keeping our partners updated about recent technology updates in the IT infrastructure domain. To enhance the partners’ knowledge about how various Vertiv offerings address customer challenges, we have arranged numerous online trainings during this current pandemic, to make the best use of their time and availability.
Our partners have been leveraging training to acquire new customers through online platforms, in addition to retaining our existing customers. With the partner community being highly responsive to our initiatives, we see tremendous growth potential in the times to come.”
Anupam Nagar, Senior Director - Channels and Alliance, Hitachi Vantara
"2019 has been an amazing growth year for Hitachi Vantara in India and SAARC. With the base that has been built this year and with several innovations in our product portfolio we are confident that 2020 will be another year of growth for us and our partners. We will be ramping up our highly structured academy-led training courses and certification programs for our partners this year. Hitachi Vantara recently introduced its entry-level storage system, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G130, for the India market. VSP G130 is an extension of the hybrid-flash VSP G series systems that support smaller datacentre modernization initiatives and provides agile data infrastructure with minimal costs for SMBs, remote or branch offices that need local backup capabilities, direct-attached storage (DAS) environments, and simplified virtual server deployments. Clubbed with the recent launches of a new family of Storage – VSP 5000 family and VSP 990 family and a slew of Digital Services offerings we have a vast portfolio that our partners can take to their customers and win big. This year’s program focuses on being:
Predictable : Proven, future proof offerings that leverage an integrated portfolio and open standards for third party integration and repeatability
Profitable : Build IP and services catalog leveraging automation tools in a repeatable, efficient manner that extends touch points and increases customer value, and.
Pioneering : Extend relevance across customers by aligning technology and business outcomes .Up level IT to an Innovation Center.
By 2020, an estimated 50 billion physical objects will be consuming, generating and communicating data: thus, turning the world into a giant Datacentre. Increased storage demand from Government, Professional Services and BFSI drove the growth in 2019 - 2020. Incremental growth was driven by Technology refresh/capacity expansion, modernization initiatives and investments on emerging technologies. With storage, Flash Array systems witnessed the maximum growth. Furthermore, entry and mid-level storage systems are witnessing exponential growth. From our perspective, we believe that India’s growing appetite for data creation and consumption and demand for services related to data management will play a critical role in our growth story. Furthermore, AI and Machine Learning will unleash the power of data to drive business decisions. This will result in product innovations that will specifically contribute to supporting requirements of new technologies. In the foreseeable future, these are significant opportunities for our channel partners to build their business by developing a long-term business strategy, skills and complementary services capabilities that will enable them to win."
Ramya Chatterjee, CEO, Cybernetyx
"As we all know that market competition is intensifying day-by-day and business is becoming more challenging from the perspective of new customer acquisition and engagement, the exponential pace of change is in the process to create anxiety across the AV/OA/IT partner community. Thus, our focus is always on creating an adaptive environment for our channel partners where they keep on getting relevant information & also get trained so that they can comfortably cope up with the changes and all our ‘partner programs’ are designed based on these fundamentals.
Cybernetyx’s partner programs are realistic, scalable and process-driven to ensure smooth program implementation. Cybernetyx follows a two tier model of distribution. The national distributors import products (sometime they source from Cybernetyx India) and then they distribute them to their next tier of partners who are called the VARs or Stockist Partners and they in turn sell it to the end-customers. In some cases, big system integrators also come into the picture for executing large strategic projects / tenders. In 2020 we would like to focus on value added partners only. In fast changing market place the typical ‘box moving partner’ may not survive any more.
While selecting channel partners, Cybernetyx keeps in mind 5 parameters:
The investment appetite
The partner’s capability to focus on technology-based products
Problem solving skills & consultative selling approach
Passion for growth
Scalability
Broadly, we take the following 10 initiatives to support our channel partners:
Channel Training Program (on Product, GTM & Service)
Partner Certification Program
Demo Investments
POC assistance
EDM/ Product Graphics support
Business Leads / Enquiry Assistance
Digital Marketing Assistance
Back-end Rebate
Time-bound, target driven channel incentive scheme
Preferential transfer price based on commitment & investment
Due to COVID-19 lockdown, we are getting awesome traction for our newly launched Kneura Platform business. Kneura is an easy to use Virtual Classroom Platform that provides powerful tools for Educators to Create and Deliver Lessons (Live and Online), Grade, Advise and Engage with Learners and achieve extraordinary learning outcomes. We expect this business to grow rapidly this year. We have 50 million classrooms in India in K12 segment also. Higher Education & vocational training institutes are on top of it. We encourage new channel partners to join hands with us to take this awesome platform to all classrooms across the nation.
To enable Teach (for teachers) & learn (from students) from home we have also launched two innovative products namely ‘Galileo Teach’ & ‘Galileo Learn’. We hope these two product lines would also be on high demand at this point in time & also through-out the year.
Work From Home is the ‘New Normal’. Social distancing is a norm now. More and more people will have to work from home. More and more families and friends will meet & chat over VC instead of F2F interaction at restaurants or at each other’s homes. Users wish to have a device that could make them extremely productive during “Work from Home” and also after office hours keep them relaxed by making their family talk to families of loved ones and friends. For this need, we have just launched Thinker Connect, World’s first 2 in 1 interactive & corroborative device that converts your home TV into a touch screen / interactive canvas and also a video conferencing hub (with built in microphone array). Using the advance motion-sensing technology of EyeRIS® Sensor, Thinker Connect can intelligently track the users’ gestures in real time to perform touch interactivity on any Television. The AI-powered wide-angle camera captures the video without any distortion so that everyone can be seen very clearly while making video conferencing. The acoustic intelligent quad MEMS beamforming mic array delivers the highest quality of sound. The Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) suppresses the background noise while focusing directly on the speaker. Thinker Connect is highly compatible with all the major collaboration tools like Zoom, Google Hangout, Teams and Skype. We are expecting a super high penetration of this product in India in 2020.
We expect that there will be a steady growth in the Govt. ICT Projects (Smart Class Integration projects driven by State or Central Govt Bodies) & Cybernetyx holds the leadership position in Smart Interactive Equipment space in Education. We are expecting a steady demand of our flagship EyeRIS Series in 2020 too."
