Alex Thurber, Senior Vice President, Global Partners and Alliances, Riverbed, speaks exclusively to the Channel Post MEA about Riverbed’s recent rebranding and how they have enabled their channels to take their new solutions to the market.
This is your first GITEX presence after the launch of your new brand identity. What message would you like to give using this event as the platform?
Our strategy was to use GITEX to pass the message that this is the best time to partner with Riverbed, as we will enable our partners to provide value and empower every click within their organization, be it from their own employees or from their customers. During the event, we along with our distributors were present at five different locations to project our new brand identity and showcase our new solutions.
What are your highlights at this year’s show?
First and foremost was our new brand closely followed by the Alluvio Unified Oberservability and Riverbed Acceleration. We also have the newest addition, Alluvio IQ. These solutions offer our partners an opportunity to build their professional services. It enables our partners to control the profitability and establish a strong bond with the customer and become more of a trusted advisor, thereby opening up many more business avenues.
How did you get your partners in the fold of observability/ enable them to embrace the change?
Riverbed has always been a channel-first organization. To equip our partners, and embrace the changes, we evaluated our current partner ecosystem, analyzed, and understood if they would like to expand into Alluvio. Our partners themselves were tempted by the opportunities these solutions could open for them. They could see themselves being promoted to a position of a consultant which enabled our partners to sell not just Riverbed solutions but also equip them to suggest and offer other solutions and technologies to the customers. The power of observability empowers customers to resolve problems even before they become noticeable making them niche in the market.
We also ensured that the solution, Alluvio IQ, was transparent right from the beginning. They could understand the power of the robust APIs we were building and the amount of insightful data the smart platform could offer. We have offered necessary trainings free of charge that truly sustained their interest and confidence in us.
What would be your GTM strategy for this part of the world?
Channel has always been our top priority. Our focus is Alluvio, which offers the crucial element of visibility and observability of what’s happening in the network, thereby offering a comprehensive solution. And this exactly is our GTM strategy. And acceleration is something we have been for the last 20 years and we are the best in it, and we will continue to offer the same support that we have been offering all these years.
And after a rebranding and the introduction of this new portfolio, how has the company performed?
The results have been great. Our business is up by more than 20% year on year. Our new branding seems to be doing the magic and we are very happy with that. And next year, the growth looks strong, and we are excited!
What are your takeaways from GITEX 2022?
We are impressed by the number of people we met during the event. We have customers from both public and private sectors and our solutions, Alluvio unified observability platform and Alluvio IQ is very much aligned with what we want to achieve in this region. GITEX has helped us realize that we’re doing the right thing and we are heading in the right direction.
