Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced a new partner program, HPE Partner Ready Vantage. Building upon the award winning HPE Partner Ready program, HPE Partner Ready Vantage is purpose-built to help partners adjust to and thrive in today’s changing market.
The program focuses on partners with as-a-service practices and recognizes and develops partner expertise. The new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program provides partners the flexibility to meet customer demands and accelerate their customers’ business outcomes.
Alongside the program, HPE also announced updates to the HPE Pro Series, new enhancements to Partner Connect, and a refresh to the HPE Partner Portal streamlining and improving the experience of HPE Partners and their customers.
Today’s partners face major shifts in the market. Rather than simply supplying specific components of infrastructure, customers want partners that understand their business and deliver and manage full solutions that help them solve specific challenges and achieve key business outcomes with measurable results. Instead of capital expenditure (CapEx) focused approaches, customers now demand operating expenditure (OpEx) arrangements, where partners provide easy to use as-a-service solutions that allow them to pay for only what they need. And, more than ever, customers seek reliable, full-service partners that deliver comprehensive, ongoing support that is tailored to their unique needs and business objectives. In fact, according to IDC1, 76% of business-to-business customers want partners to take more day-to-day administrative and operational responsibility for infrastructure so internal IT staff can focus more on their business.
HPE Partner Ready Vantage addresses these market changes and gives partners the choices they need to meet their customers’ evolving requirements. The program provides flexibility for partners to identify and pursue new opportunities, strengthen customer relationships, expand their market reach, and provide comprehensive solutions that deliver quantifiable business outcomes for customers. In short, HPE Partner Ready Vantage allows partners to deliver the solutions their customers want, in the ways that best meet their own business goals.
“We value our partner ecosystem and are committed to investing in their success. We believe in the power of collaboration to deliver the best solutions and services that help our partners unlock their full potential,” said George Hope, worldwide head of partner sales, HPE. “As partners evolve their business models to meet the demands of customers today, they need a flexible program that is designed to help them deliver no matter how their customers are choosing to buy or what their priorities are. HPE Partner Ready Vantage enables partners to participate more fully across the entire customer lifecycle and is optimized for our partners’ evolving business needs to accelerate their growth and enable their success.”
HPE Partner Ready Vantage
Designed to create enhanced opportunities for partners to build repeatable profitability, and deepen longstanding customer relationships, HPE Partner Ready Vantage is:
In tune with how partners want to do business. The Centers of Expertise (COEs) focus on key business areas, and are structured to align to current or aspiring partner skillsets. Partners can reach new markets and unlock new revenue streams by choosing to deliver any way they need to, whether on-prem, cloud or hybrid.
Streamlined with greater flexibility. The unified partner program and refreshed portal encompass both HPE and Aruba portfolios, so partners can deliver solutions that fit their business. Partners can quickly and easily access the information they need, spending less time searching and more time delivering value to their customers.
Designed for as-a-service growth. No matter where partners are on their as-a-service journey, they can develop or enhance their service expertise. Partners can position their business as a market leader by leveraging HPE edge-to-cloud solutions – powered by HPE GreenLake – to develop unique customer experiences to expand their business.
“In recognizing that our partners play many roles and want to be recognized for their various areas of expertise, HPE Partner Ready Vantage delivers a complete 360 approach, addressing partner business models while nurturing, promoting and elevating partners based on their capabilities and expertise,” added Jesse Chavez, worldwide vice president partner programs and operations, HPE.
The new program is organized into three tracks: Build, Sell, and Service. Under these tracks are focused COEs, offering tailored enablement, training, go-to-market initiatives, and sales tools.
The Build Track is designed for partners to integrate with HPE technology, leverage tested and proven pre-packaged solutions from HPE and HPE technology partners. Partners can also develop their own applications using HPE’s open platforms to deliver the solutions that meet their customers’ needs.
The Sell Track is designed to help partners grow their as a service business by offering value-added solutions from across the HPE portfolio
The Service Track is designed specifically for partners focused on delivering services across the customer lifecycle, including: consulting, assessment, design, integration, deployment, migration, support and management.
“We created the services COEs to help partners excel in an as-a-service world,” said Donna Grothjan, vice president of worldwide channels for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “We’ve taken a personal approach as we’ve developed all of the components of this new program. We were deliberate in including mentorship alongside a wealth of vital training and workshops for our partners. We’ve relied on global best practices as we’ve built out the program elements – all in an effort to help our partners extend and expand their practices, have faster time to activation, reduce churn, and achieve higher than average renewal rates for customers.”
To date, the following Aruba Service COEs are available: Customer Success, Managed Services and Professional Services. The COEs for the Build and Sell Tracks, along with the Hybrid Cloud Service COEs, will become available to all partners over the next year.
