Hewlett Packard Enterprise has launched a new partner program aimed at helping resellers, service providers, and developers seize growing demand among small and large businesses alike for end-to-end, outcome-based solutions billed as a service.
Called Partner Ready Vantage, the new program is a major step in a process HPE itself commenced in 2019, when it announced its intention to offer its entire portfolio on an as-a-service basis by this year. The infrastructure heavyweight unveiled Partner Ready Vantage alongside updates to its HPE Pro Series enablement program, Partner Connect locator platform, and Partner Ready Portal on the eve of its 2022 Discover conference in Las Vegas.
“HPE is creating a new future and we want partners to come on this journey with us,” says George Hope, HPE’s worldwide head of partner sales. “We’re focused on finding new ways to put our partners first with choice, flexibility, [and] the opportunity to adapt and grow their businesses wherever they are on their as-a-service journey.”
Partner Ready Vantage, he adds, supplements rather than replaces the existing Partner Ready program, which will continue to offer resources and support to channel pros who have yet to begin adapting to IT’s as-a-service future.
“Our partners aren’t all evolving at the same pace,” Hope notes.
Tracks within Partner Ready Vantage are built around what partners do versus traditional categories like reseller, distributor, and ISV. “We’re shifting the focus away from partner types and more towards business models,” Hope says.
The Build track, for example, serves partners who offer products and IP based on HPE platform technologies. The Sell track, meanwhile, is for partners that sell as-a-service solutions while the Service track is for partners that support them. Members can mix and match tracks as suits their specific capabilities and go-to-market strategy.
All three tracks contain “Centers of Expertise” (COEs) in specific disciplines. Partners in the Service track, for example, can qualify for COEs dedicated to managed services, professional services, and post-deployment customer success. Additional COEs for hybrid cloud services, along with COEs for the Build and Sell tracks, will roll out over the next year.
Each COE has its own set of benefits and requirements. Those requirements, in turn, are designed to focus less on product-specific knowledge than on a partner’s ability to deliver complete solutions for their customers.
“You’ll see the evolution of measuring you on how good you are at our technology to how good you are surrounding our technology with other things that make a more complete package,” Hope says.
Partner Ready Vantage also seeks to make working with HPE easier. Among other things, the program provides a single home for as-a-service solutions from both HPE itself and its Aruba networking unit.
“Our partners reminded us at our partner advisory board a month ago that simple wins at the end of the day, and we need to be easier to do business with,” Hope says.
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