The Canalys Forums bring together experts in the IT channel to discuss the latest news, forecasts, and strategy. This year, Vertiv participated as a Gold Sponsor with Andrea Ferro, VP channel, IT, and edge applications for EMEA, and Jesper Hersbro, EMEA channel distribution director, as representatives in the Expert Hubs.
Expert speakers in the "Tomorrow’s partner programs" Hub walked us through the trends and highlights in partner programs. They underlined that in the last year, there’s been a shift away from the revenue threshold and the traditional partner tiers towards point-based systems.
As expected, AI was also a key focus in terms of how it affects partner programs. There has been a lot of automation in co-selling, automating RFPs, and self-serving on partner portals. We don’t have a clear answer on the impact of AI on partner programs, but we expect significant changes in how these programs are served to partners and how partners adapt to them.
Jesper Hersbro mentioned that, at Vertiv, we are currently assessing the opportunity to implement a series of AI initiatives in the business. We have recently reviewed a series of different use cases and have narrowed these down to key priority projects based on the 3 dimensions of desirability (benefit for customers), viability (benefit for Vertiv), and feasibility. We are excited to explore that even further in the future.
Another spotlight was on understanding that partner types are complex and need different types of support from partner programs.
Partner programs are evolving to take advantage of the entire ecosystem, as in every deal there are multiple partners, which comes with different challenges. The focus is not just on the transacting partners but also on the influencing partners and the range of partnerships we are seeing in the market.
Hersbro highlighted the different types of partner programs that help drive both sales and non-sales activities and how they can be more easily applied to complex sales cycles and diverse partner ecosystems.
"In Vertiv's case, our VIP incentive program tracks and rewards partners for a range of sales and non-sales activities without any reporting requirements and lets them know when they have points to redeem," said Hersbro. “This not only acknowledges their contributions, but also enables them to focus on sales rather than dealing with unnecessary administrative tasks.”
An Award-Winning Partner Program
The Vertiv Incentive Program (VIP) offers an exclusive view of marketing and sales resources, partnered with dedicated account management and support to help partners drive demand and grow their business.
The program can also significantly enhance the visibility and exposure of their business, ensuring that partners reach and engage with prospects actively seeking the services they offer.
By partnering with Vertiv, businesses gain access to our extensive knowledge and industry expertise. We understand the unique challenges businesses face and can provide tailored solutions that meet their specific needs. Our goal is to help our partners become trusted advisors and industry experts, not just resellers.
New Marketing Center Tools
In the Canalys Forum, Hersbro also mentioned that with the help of AI, marketing will be faster at creating high-quality content. He underlined that AI must cater to the needs of the vendor and that stability is essential for long-time partners. “We want to bring our partners the best possible experience, which is why we launched two tools to keep our promise”, commented Hersbro.
The Vertiv Marketing Center platform elevates the Partner Portal experience with the latest Marketing Automation functionality. It is designed to help partners generate leads and grow their revenue by directing the right prospects to them. It also offers them ready-to-use website content, new leads with email marketing, social media syndication, Google ads, and lead dashboard.
Additionally, the new Vertiv Solution Designer helps partners become experts in rapid configuration and easy quoting of globally consistent Vertiv IT infrastructure solutions. It makes the buying journey easier by giving them access to rapid configuration of IT solutions, design assistance, speedy quotes without waiting times, and discounts for quotes submitted in the tool.
Future perspectives
At Vertiv, in line with our commitment to maintaining a simple and profitable program, we continuously work on enhancements to support these objectives. In the future, we envision a strong mix of automation and hands-on touchpoints that combine convenience, speed, tailored incentives, information, and profitability with a nurturing approach to ensure our program doesn’t inadvertently affect the relationships with our partners.
As Hersbro pointed out, “It’s important to have a solid technical division that can support channel partners because we know our products best and the resellers know the solutions with different brands even better. It’s a combined effort.”
“One of the benefits of working with us in that we provide a combination of programs and tools enhanced with our hands-on technical resources to enable 1-1 partner engagements from day one, helping them to sell even reasonably complex solutions without having to invest time to become an expert in our solutions. Our goal is to keep this on our priority list in the future.” concluded Hersbro.
Read more about Vertiv’s participation in the Canalys Forum 2023 in our news section. For more information on the Vertiv Partner Program, visit Partners.Vertiv.com.
