With the Middle East expected to show the most public cloud growth over the next two years, we spoke to Bassam Al Masri, Senior Manager Channel, Nutanix – Middle East, about how the company is aiming to incentivise its channel partners.
In line with its global vision, on a regional level Nutanix will continue to position itself as the next generation operating system for the enterprise cloud. Nutanix has Gartner’s validation of being a leader in the Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) space.
It wants to be the first vendor that comes to mind as a trusted partner when enterprises in the region are ready to transform their data centres, their IT operations and their businesses.
Nutanix will continue introducing market-changing state-of-the-art technologies and bring on board top new talent and partners to enable the company to stay ahead in a very competitive marketplace.
Not surprisingly, its channel programme plays a massively important part in the company’s growth strategy.
ITC speaks to Bassam Al Masri, Senior Manager Channel, Nutanix – Middle East, to find out more.
Tell us about the unveiling of Nutanix’s new channel charter in August 2018
Nutanix unveiled a new channel charter entitled ‘Power to the Partner’ that is reflective of a new approach required in today’s changing marketplace. Traditional channel programmes need to evolve or they will never enable partners to be successful. A programme is dictated by rules and guidelines, while a charter is about empowering partners to be successful in the market.
In today’s cloud era, Nutanix’ charter focuses on the new generation of ‘born-in-the-cloud’ solution providers. A new kind of approach is required for these kinds of channel partners, going beyond typical programmes with tiers and clip levels. Flexibility is a key feature of the charter. It is not a one size fits all channel programme. The Nutanix charter includes new marketing tools, multi-touch campaigns and other tools that will help partners brand themselves to customers along with targeting new customers in the market.
In December 2018, Nutanix enhanced its channel charter to extend opportunities to Value-Added Distributors (VAD) and Global Systems Integrators (GSI) along with additional opportunities for resellers. The new updates provide benefits to partners across industry, size and function in order for all Nutanix partners to succeed and grow with their Nutanix business.
As part of the new components of the programme, Nutanix has laid out features designed specifically for VADs to provide access to incentives to help them easily capitalise on the multi-cloud, multi-platform and multi-workload opportunities in the market. Distributors can now leverage multiple resources throughout the sales lifecycle and can easily grow and improve their businesses alongside Nutanix.
Benefits for VADs under the new programme include:
- A self-service channel for simplified quoting and ordering with a new value-added Distributor Price Book
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Integration to give distributors a faster time to revenue with Quote-to-Cash Automation
- New incentives to reward VADs for focus, enablement and partner management at the Pioneer level within Nutanix’s largest selling geographies
Power to the Partner is also adding a new influence incentive programme, which rewards partners who significantly contribute to a customer purchase. Partners with strategic relationships and influence with customers who may not be transacting on the sale of a deal – can now receive an influencer incentive if they are scalers, masters or authorised GSI partners.
Additionally, since the original launch of Power to the Partner, Nutanix has further clarified distinctions between the reseller partner tiers in the charter. Partners will now have discounting and pricing on approved opportunities which are enhanced as they move up the tiers of the charter.
With new distinctions between tiering, partners will see further benefits from investing time and resources into selling Nutanix solutions. Starting in February 2019, Nutanix is also providing partners with XLAB software licenses for scaler and master partners. In order to obtain more autonomy over selling Nutanix products, scaler and master partners will now have access to full-featured licenses for a broad range of Nutanix software solutions to leverage in their lab environments.
What can you tell us about the launch of ‘Velocity’ – a channel programme targeting strategic, midmarket-focused partners?
In June we launched the Nutanix Velocity channel partner programme targeted at key partners focused on the mid-market. It includes accelerated selling processes, incentives and marketing investments for strategic, mid-market focused channel partners.
As part of the programme, Lenovo is joining forces with Nutanix to provide specific HX product bundles for mid-market customers based on the HX appliance. In addition, the companies are jointly launching a new hyperconverged software-ready product offering, designed specifically for enterprise customers called Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Certified Nodes.
Through this new programme, Nutanix is enabling partners to demonstrate to customers in the mid-market how hyperconverged infrastructure can help provide an elegant solution to their needs without the cost and security challenges they may face with public cloud-only models. Nutanix is looking to prioritise and reward partners who invest the most in the company’s business.
What does Nutanix’s partner ecosystem look like?
Our partner ecosystem includes technology alliance partners, system integrators, managed service providers (MSPs), OEM partners, Consulting partners and training partners.
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