It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! VMware’s new, evolved Partner Connect Program is now live worldwide, marking a hugely exciting milestone for our entire partner ecosystem. Our revitalized program is all about partner enablement; we’ve listened to your feedback and made huge enhancements to make sure you enjoy greater flexibility and efficiency, however you engage with VMware.
From quicker and more straightforward pathways for progress, to increased incentives and recognition for partners that excel, Partner Connect gives you all the ingredients you need thrive in the growing multi-cloud landscape, while continuing to deliver for your customers. So let me share a few of those new features with you.
Opening new doors for our partners…
An incentive to evolve
We know that you need to stay one step ahead of the innovation curve, and on top of all the latest developments and evolutions in enterprise technology, to position yourselves as expert consultants. And right now, that means mastering all corners of multi-cloud. So we’ve revised the Partner Connect Program to help accelerate your own journeys to cloud, by rewarding partners who increase their capabilities and differentiate themselves from others in the market.
Capitalizing on those opportunities to upskill and learn is essential to protect and build profitability. And that’s why we’re also introducing a new a practice development framework that is both rigorous and time-bound, and flexible and robust in its structure, from start to finish. Partners can also track their development journey through automated insights within the Partner Connect portal, so you know exactly where you stand across your progression and program metrics at any time.
A change in role
No-one knows your customers better than you. Your unique insight and knowledge of your clients’ challenges – and rich expertise and experience – is what sets you apart. But moving from a ‘transactional’ to a ‘consultative’ approach can be tricky.
We want to help you make that transition, and have made changes to help you establish yourselves as expert consultants, and not just resellers of VMware technology. In the era of multi-cloud, that means providing added value throughout the customer lifecycle, and enabling organizations to adopt and consume the various cloud platforms and services they purchase – rather than simply supporting deployments. So our new features will help you align with the trend towards as-a-service/subscription models, expand your services portfolios and help your customers leverage their investments to the fullest.
A chance to work together
The success of your customers relies on an integrated ecosystem, as no single company can fulfill all their requirements alone. That’s why we want to make it easier for partners to work together and combine their expertise, so they deliver great outcomes for their customers. And through the Partner Connect Program we’ve aimed to achieve that, by creating a diverse and interconnected network of partners that prides itself on collaboration, and its ability to help customers become more cloud-savvy. Customers value that ease of engagement, and these partnerships are crucial to them achieving their desired results more quickly.
..and lighting up new rooms for customers:
With our new range of incentives and support, we want to make you the perfect allies for customers navigating the tech challenges they face today.
A stronger ally
Customers today face a state of ‘cloud chaos’, and are having to navigate a constantly evolving cloud landscape while keeping resilience, costs, domain and compliance in mind. Our revised program puts you in perfect position to add value here, by advising on what ‘smarter’ use of the cloud looks like, and ensuring they benefit from multi-cloud while continuing to enjoy the full benefits of on-prem environments.
That could take the form of supporting accelerated cloud migrations to the right cloud, securing and automating customers’ software supply chains, or helping them take charge of their private and public cloud infrastructure expenses. That’s the inherent beauty of multi-cloud – there are so many choices available, and so many routes to achieving those crucial IT outcomes. Whether that’s expediting application modernization initiatives, enabling enterprise cloud transformation, or safeguarding the hybrid workforce.
More flexibility
More than ever, businesses are reevaluating the role of digital technology in their overall strategy, and how they consume it. Which means they want flexible, managed services that allow them to adopt a platform as they need it.
Partners need to evolve their business models to align with these changing patterns of consumption, and our new suite of incentives around products such as vSphere+ and vSAN+ does just that. Customers are empowered with unparalleled freedom, agility, and flexibility for their workloads whether they’re in the cloud or on-prem, and partners secure recurring revenues and consistent profitability, via subscription-based consumption models. What’s not to like?
We’re already seeing countless examples worldwide of how Partner Connect is helping us work closely with you to identify new customers and grow existing engagements. I’m super excited by the opportunities this program will unlock for innovation and growth both for our you our partners and customers, and can’t wait to embark on that journey with you.
For more details on Partner Connect, click here.