OUR SUCCESS DEPENDS ON THE SUCCESS OF OUR PARTNERS

PUNEET GUPTA
Managing Director, Netapp India Marketing & Services
 

NEED OF A PARTNER PROGRAMME

Channel partners are the backbone of any sales organization and key for their go-to-market strategy. A robust channel partner ecosystem enables an organization to identify new market opportunities, reach, launch products and services and make the right set of tools, and resources available to help address customer requirements. We have always recognized that our success depends on the success of our partners and that we can all accomplish more by working together than we ever could on our own. The NetApp Partner Programs focus on enabling digital transformation for customers, accelerating partner profitability, and providing them a predictable business environment.

IMPORTANCE OF A PARTNER PROGRAMME

At NetApp, we review and update our partner programs on an annual basis to make them current and aligned to the business and market demands. To ensure a consistent approach in our sales and marketing efforts, we run ongoing partner listening activities and seek their feedback on improvising the programs. Keeping in mind the ongoing global pandemic, we specifically designed Initiatives such as extending credit terms by 30 days for direct purchasing partners (distributors and direct resellers), extending eligibility for achievement in partner growth programs, delaying our next compliance review by three months and extending all certification expiries by six months – all helped us stabilize and respond to the pandemic better.

MAIN CONCERNS TO ADDRESS

Our channel partner strategy is based on three key pillars – ensuring their business growth aligned to us, enabling their sales and technical resources skillset to be industry ready & supporting them in their innovation journey towards new technologies. We constantly and consistently work with our partners in simplifying their access to our systems, making it easier for them to claim; supporting them with new use cases in AI/ML, IoT, etc. as they innovate; running various enablement sessions to ensure up-to-date skills while at the same time investing in joint marketing activities and expanding into newer geographies.