Aruba’s continued focus on as-a-Service to be a game-changer for the channel

As a channel driven company, Aruba is committed to making continued investments and provide its partners with the tools, resources and programs they need to keep up with evolving trends and be a trusted advisor to their customers. With the options of HPE Partner Ready for Aruba and HPE Partner Ready Vantage, Aruba has what it takes to help its partners succeed. Speaking in details about its channel initiatives, Suryanarayan CS, Country Manager - Product Category and Channel, Aruba, India tells VARINDIA of Aruba’s key priorities and about its commitment towards channel - 

Partners are at the heart of everything Aruba does, with over 90% of its business coming through the channel.  and we are deeply committed to enabling their success by continually innovating, improving and expanding the resources, tools and support they need to grow their businesses.

Some of the partner initiatives Aruba has undertaken include – 
Investing in Partner Success Managers to support the development of partners’ Customer Success Management (CSM) practices and the tools that partners need to execute Aruba CSM sales playbooks.

Expansion of its sales and technical channel enablement programs into SD-WAN to support Aruba’s Edge Connect and SD-Branch solutions.

Investing in developing a seamless integration with Service Automation Platforms so MSPs can use their tool of choice. 

Enhancing Aruba’s MSP program and offering, creating a more attractive discounting model, while also enhancing the available training along with launching a new BDF funding program for as-a-Service growth. 

Launching “AVA” -- Aruba Value Assessment that will help partners create a very professional ROI document.

Investing in partner marketing to create turnkey “best of breed” marketing programs for top partners to participate.

“One of the most important initiatives we undertook was launching the HPE Partner Ready Vantage program,” says Suryanarayan CS, Country Manager - Product Category and Channel, Aruba, India. “Building upon the award winning HPE Partner Ready program, HPE Partner Ready Vantage focuses on partners with as-a-service practices and recognizes and develops partner expertise. The program includes three distinct tracks; Build, Sell and Service. The Build track will help partners enhance their solution portfolio; the Sell track enables partners to grow their as-a-Service business; and the Service track is focused on enabling partners to deliver their own services. This will ultimately help position themselves to gain higher margins and grow greater revenues.”

Amidst this, the key priority for Aruba will be the continued expansion of its as-a-Service solution offerings, so as to help partners meet the changing needs of how customers want or need to consume and their focus on business outcomes. Through the HPE Partner Ready for Aruba and HPE Partner Ready for Vantage programs, partners will have the flexibility to deliver Aruba solutions in any way they need to.

“We are committed to our partners’ success through ongoing investments that ensure our partners have easy access to the right resources that can help them grow their expertise and business. As such, we offer both HPE Partner Ready for Aruba and HPE Partner Ready Vantage programs. Partners can choose one or both programs depending on where they are in their as-a-Service journey,” says Suryanarayan.

HPE Partner Ready for Aruba program is another award-winning program that offers various sales and technical trainings to partners to help them become an expert in the Aruba portfolio. This partner-centric program equips partners’ sales and engineering teams with what they need to win deals and provide outstanding service and support to their customers. With a newly enhanced partner portal, it is even easier for partners to access resources, training, tools and marketing support to drive success. 

Aruba – an industry leader
Aruba has consistently led the market with technology, product and service innovations ever since its inception. It is credited with introducing the industry’s first Distributed Services Switch, enabling enterprises to deploy software-defined stateful services where data is created and processed. It also introduced the industry’s first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E solution. Most recently, along with Federated Wireless and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission, Aruba performed the first global live demonstration of an end-to-end AFC system to enable Wi-Fi 6E technology.

Aruba has continuously been rated as the most partner-oriented organization in the industry, year after year. “This is an outcome of our deep commitment to our partners and our very robust and mature partner program that is continuously improved to incorporate all the market shifts and trends,” states Suryanarayan.

Aruba is also a champion of sustainability and it is going to be an increasing focus for its businesses in 2023. Therefore, it encourages its partners to help companies reduce their energy footprints in order to stand out from the crowd.