Jean Philippe Barleaza, EMEA VP Channel, Alliances and General Business, VMware
The EMEA business landscape is, without a doubt, more fragmented than ever before. Organisations across regions are moving at radically different speeds, adopting a range of technologies, and operating under varying regulatory frameworks. Within such an environment, VMware’s valued partners are essential to our success and the success of our customers – something we’ve said time and time again, but which bears repeating today.
Our partner ecosystem continues to expand through new solution development and acquisitions, most recently Pivotal, to support application modernisation strategies, and Carbon Black to help businesses implement intrinsic security to the endpoint. Against this evolving backdrop, we need to continually modernise the experience that all of our partners receive. The recent go live of our innovative new partner programme VMware Partner Connect is our latest commitment to this.
This programme brings to the table a new focus of providing greater agility, simplicity and ease of differentiation to ensure we, as one ecosystem, deliver even better outcomes for governments and businesses across Europe.
Customers at the heart of everything
As one ecosystem, our ongoing success relies on ensuring that our customers’ most pressing business priorities define everything we do. And today, our customers are being defined by their ability to deliver modern applications to bring innovative services to life, with security and scalability, to differentiate their businesses.
It sounds straightforward in theory, but in practice, application development and management is swirling with complexity, demanding different puzzle pieces from all over multi-cloud infrastructures. There’s real opportunity, therefore, for partners to help customers address and manage this by making it easy for them to build, run, manage and intrinsically secure – as well as consume – apps and technology as and how they wish via one digital foundation. Partner Connect will go even further in helping partners become masters in delivering true business outcomes from technology and cementing lifetime relationships with customers. From consultancy to assessment, supporting the migration of apps or managed services, the opportunity is there for partners who can make it easy for each and every business they serve.
Unlocking opportunities to differentiate
Within this, we recognise that partners also need to be able to establish their USPs through differentiation. Partner Connect does this through Master Services Competencies (MSCs) – our highest validations of services capability, aligned to VMware’s strategic IT priorities. MSCs cover Data Center Virtualization, Cloud Management and Automation, VMware Cloud on AWS, Network Virtualization and Digital Workspace. We’ll continue to keep these fresh and reflective of market demand – as was the case with the launch of an MSC specifically on Cloud Native and Kubernetes.
Furthermore, we’re committed to helping partners cement their chosen differentiation by investing alongside them. Our MSCs are the best for a reason – they take a lot of time and resources to obtain. Under Partner Connect, we’ll reward partners for their levels of investment and how deep they go in their accreditations. This is yet another example of collaboration in the programme’s design, in response to our partners calling for greater co-investment to support the level of differentiation they offer.
Take all of this together, and we’re incredibly excited to enter into a new era of partnership with our valued ecosystem. From its foundation to every little detail, Partner Connect has been designed for mutual benefit today, tomorrow, and for years to come, with room for easy updates in line with industry changes. Most importantly, we will stay true to our focus on collaboration for success, engaging with partners and keeping Partner Connect the programme that works for them.
Reflecting on the adjustments Partner Connect will make to their business model, Yves Sandfort, CEO of VMware partner comdivision comments in the video below on the clarity the programme will bring to partners. You can see the full segment of the interview at the link below:
In the same interview, Yves details how comdivision was able to keep one step ahead of its customers challenges by investing in VMware training programmes like Master Services Competencies, and the impact it has had on its business:
For more information, visit the VMware Partner Connect virtual launch event here: https://www.vmware.com/partner-connect-live.html.
