Channel Post speaks with Ben Savage, EMEA Head of Channels & Alliances at Pure Storage about their revamped partner program and how the enhancements will further strengthen their partner ecosystem.
What are the key enhancements to your program and why did you revamp it?
At Pure, we are laser focused on not only providing the best customer experience on the planet, as proven with our audited 83+ NPS score, but we’re also maniacal about creating the best partner experience in the industry.
We never put our programs ahead of our innovation. With that said, we know that continual enhancements and evolution of Pure Storage’s P3 Partner Program is essential to winning relationships within our ecosystem. With that backdrop, we are adding a number of benefits to our P3 Solution Provider Program and also introducing a new category for Service Providers.
For all P3 partners, we now offer beta testing to provide early hands-on access to upcoming products, solutions and features. Our partners are leading the way into new workloads and use-cases for Pure’s portfolio. The related feedback is incredibly valuable as we continue on the path of developing the most innovative technology for the cloud era.
Pure has a rich history of successful partnerships with Service Providers globally, including some who also have hosting practices. As we worked together we were inspired to design a program that will allow Service Providers to offer their customers the ability to consume Pure as part of a managed or cloud deployment.
The Service Provider program offers three levels of participation based on revenue and certification commitments, as well as a myriad of benefits that include volume discounts and dual compensation modelling. By more closely partnering with Service Providers to easily offer hosted solutions and/or bundled services, we’re ultimately providing our customers with increased value via broadened consumption options.
For all P3 partners, Pure is extending its range of enablement tools to help drive success in the market; including training, demo gear discounts and deal registration. The program also offers a variety of sales and marketing resources, including access to MDF funds, a self-service marketing platform called Pure Demand, and the Pure On The Go app, which allows partners to easily access sales resources, and the ability to configure, price and quote…all from their mobile devices.
Why is it important for partners to be a part of your program?
As a 100% channel focused company, we obviously couldn’t do it without our channel partners. Pure Storage’s P3 Partner Program is built on the framework that recognizes and rewards our partners. Pure Storage remains selective when choosing which partners to go to market with and only invests in mutually beneficial, high quality partner relationships that result in high sales participation, accelerated growth and increased profitability.
P3 provides partners with the tools, training and support they need to be successful. As such, Pure Storage channel partners that are part of the program have the technology and solutions to drive faster, smarter, and more innovative business, helping customers achieve results that were previously unimaginable.
How will your partners benefit from the new programs?
The benefit of the new Service Provider (SP) feature is Service and Technology Coherence; aligning our technical capability with our partners’ services activity to deliver the most effective and efficient offerings. As such, our focus is not the program itself, but the results and outcomes it generates for the SP Partner. The Partner benefits and entitlements within our EMEA program are as follows:
- Integrated support (ASP) – reduce expense for the service provider by utilising their existing infrastructure and resources to maintain their own Arrays
- Integrated management – published connector tools and APIs to integrate their existing data center management framework with Pure1, a product that provides cloud-based monitoring, predictive analytics and ultra-proactive support
- SLAs for Performance/Availability that are backed by commercial penalties – as well as alignment in delivery, this enables the flow-down of appropriate risk and reduce contingencies
- Deferred Support – alignment of support and maintenance costs with customer service revenues
- Payment models – a range of payment models to fit the partners business requirements, to mitigate the capital risks of end-user customer sizing, usage and growth
What can partners expect from you going forward?
Partners can rest assured that we will continue to invest heavily in R&D and deliver cutting-edge all-flash storage solutions. In fact, at our recent conference, Pure Accelerate 2017, we showcased a host of comprehensive new hardware and software updates that will enable our partners to drive customer innovation and business transformation.
In parallel, we will continue to carefully consider new partners in the region aligned to our target markets. First and foremost, we are looking for partners that have significant long term customer relationships rather than short term opportunistic one-off projects. This is because if they are really going to be able to bring the Pure benefits such as Evergreen Storage and Forever Flash to customers, these are 3-4-5-year program of benefits that customers are going to see. And we want our partners to benefit from that. We are committed to being a 100% channel company, where the partner is a representation of Pure Storage in the market.
