EMC to offer simple, predictable and profitable business to partners

EMC India has transformed its Velocity Solution provider program that aims to create a simpler, more predictable, and profitable experience for EMC channel partners. The company has made enhancements including a new target products rebate; investment in PMR, deal registration, more services rebate for partners, to capture mid market, and expanded services offerings, tools and resources.

For EMC, channel contributes 95% of its product business in India. Looking at the current economic scenario, EMC is making its channel engagements more simpler by introducing more interactive and transactional business. At the same time, the program will allow its partners to broaden their horizon beyond products selling and focus more on solution selling, which can offer them predictable and profitable business.

Talking more about the new channel initiative, Gregg Ambulos, senior VP, Global channel sales, EMC Corporation, said, "We had a very successful 2012. As we look into 2013, which we see as the decade of channels, we have a vision to make sure whatever do we do in channel is simple, predicable and profitable. We want to make sure, our partners understand the market and have capabilities to sell both, services and solutions, and have more margins opportunities with EMC. As an organization we have a long way to grow our channel ecosystems."

Over the years the company has developed a family of channel-only products, for example, VSPEX, a flexible reference architecture. It is based on components designed in conjunction with its alliances like Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft, and VMware. Partners can fully leverage the EMC brand and industrial design in their VSPEX offerings, demonstrating EMC's understanding of the importance of the solution provider brand as the trusted adviser. And with VSPEX labs, partners are given a cloud infrastructure to test, validate and demonstrate new VSPEX configurations. After just two quarters since launching it in April 2012, partners sold more than 2,000 VSPEX systems, making it by far the fastest-growing reference architecture in the market. In addition to VSPEX, it also introduced channel-only EMC VNXe family of products.

Speaking more on offering simplicity to partners, Ambulos said, "We are focusing more on interactive engagements with our partners. Hence, investment had been made to enhance our PRM systems, deal registration and ordering process. Through our online portals and annual initiatives like partners council, partners advisory board, and feedback surveys for our partners, we want to make it more easier and transactional interactive business with EMC. Moreover, we have also added focused partner programs, that will allow more touch points to partners to offer simple business."

Another area which is more crucial for EMC is the mid market. Joergen Jakobsen, VP and GM, channels, Asia pacific and Japan, EMC International added , "Besides products selling we are also asking our partners to fortifying its service capabilities to capture the mid market. While EMC encourages its resellers to become services-enabled, where benefit opportunities accelerate. For partners who include services in their business model, EMC has strengthened its Velocity Services offerings."

Also, EMC is doubling its investment in demand generation funds, programs, and resources to develop highly qualified opportunities for partners and accelerate revenue growth.