Changes to the EMC Velocity Solution Provider Program: Give ‘Em What They Want

The key to any good partnership is listening. And that’s what we have been doing for the last year – listening to our partners. We collected all that feedback and incorporated it into the Velocity program enhancements we just rolled out for 2013. EMC is on course and speed to drive an increasing amount of business with our Channel partners and an effective program is the key to doing so.

Our goal is make our engagement simpler, more predictable and more profitable with partners. Because what else would a partner look for in a storage vendor?

We added a new incentive bonus for our top tier partners (Premier and Signature) that rewards them from dollar one of sales of a carefully chosen group of mid-market products. The goal here: provide these key partners with an incentive to drive sales of key products – like the award-winning VNX and VNXe unified storage and EMC Data Domain, EMC Avamar and EMC NetWorker backup and recovery solutions – in a market that’s underserved and offers great opportunity.

We made it easier for partners to go to market in their own way by eliminating a requirement that Premier and Signature partners have Implementation Engineers. Now partners can remain pure-play resellers, if that’s what they want, but still have the chance to achieve Velocity Specialties where the benefits get better. And to encourage more partners to become services-enabled (because we really believe that partners will do better if they’re positioned to offer a full range of sales and services to their customers), we simplified the complementary Velocity Services program.

More technology to sell means more ways to meet customers’ needs, so we’ve opened more products (and matching financial incentives for qualified partners) to the channel, including Isilon (now fully integrated into the Velocity Program so partners have access to this cutting-edge Big Data solution as part of our Consolidate Specialty), Mozy, Atmos and Centera (all part of the Backup & Recovery Specialty).

And to drive demand for all of these products (and more), we’ve upped the amount of money available through our Marketing Development Fund program, and are making more qualified leads available to partners.

So far, I’m hearing good things from our partners about these changes. They see the enhancements not just as a series of things that will make it easier for them to do business with EMC, but also as an expansion of our overall commitment to the channel. But, that said, we’re still listening and we’ll stay focused on making Velocity the best partner program out there.

About the Author: Fred Kohout