Partners the key for NetApp

Distribution Central’s CEO, Scott Frew, said the transition will benefit both corporate customers and partners through the provision of increased resources and support.

“NetApp has moved to distribution to leverage its model. It has only so many finite resources. Moving to distribution will allow NetApp to create more demand at the end-user channel.”

To ease the changeover, Distribution Central has launched a web-based sales and configuration system, with a greater depth of functionality than NetApp’s own PartnerEdge system. The new configuration tool allows resellers to track and trace every NetApp asset sold. Resellers will also be able to see which boxes are out of maintenance and thereby maximise their service opportunities. The system even allows carbon credits to be attached to each deployed box.

“The idea is you will be able to log in any time and see all the assets you have sold and what their status is to grab every bit of free money that you can.

“There’s a massive opportunity for integrators that don’t play in the storage market today because they fundamentally saw it as too difficult. If they aren’t playing in this network-attached storage space then they should start leveraging off our and NetApp’s engineers and get involved in that business.”

NetApp’s channel partners are instrumental in driving the company’s growth, representing 32 percent of its total A/NZ business for the last financial year. The channel also leveraged a further 14 percent of the company’s named account business. Going forward, the goal for this year is for the channel to hit 40 percent of the total business and to further leverage 20 percent of NetApp’s direct business.

To sponsor this growth, NetApp is investing heavily in staffing and training. It has taken on 30 new employees over the previous two months and is planning to add a further 20 by the end of the year. There are also plans to train more than 400 sales and technical staff across its partner tiers.

It has also set its sights on the lucrative SMB market, an area in which it has so far enjoyed limited success. Part of its strategy to garner more market share in the SMB space is the addition of a new Silver partner tier to its existing Platinum, Gold and Registered partner program. The new Silver level is targeted at smaller resellers willing to make a commitment to driving sales of NetApp’s Storevault SMB and FAS2000 product range. To achieve Silver status partners will require at least one NetApp-certified salesperson and technician. Certification will be provided for free by one of the vendor’s full-time trainers.

NetApp is also directing focus to helping the channel achieve greater penetration into direct accounts through increased education and services training. Partner discounts are being increased and a seven percent additional upfront discount is being made available upon registration of
new deals.

Morris said that resources are being devoted into NetApp’s eight-strong partner enablement team, particularly around free training.

“We spent an inordinate amount of time last year doing a whole bunch of baseline education around skills and certification. Nothing is free of course. The kickback to me is if I get them trained they’re on the drug.”

New business is another major focus. NetApp’s Peter O’Connor said a newly formed team will be chasing the deep pockets of government agencies in NSW, Victoria and Canberra.

“This year we’re really going to start penetrating and putting focus into government accounts, particularly state and federal accounts through a government-focused team.”

NetApp will also be dedicating the majority of its marketing budget towards lead generation and investment in partner business development activities. A new proposal-based marketing fund has been established and the company has promised to kick in two thirds of the cost of seminars held by partners to sell NetApp products.

Flying in from California for the summit, Tom Mendoza, NetApp’s vice chairman, reassured partners that the company was well positioned to ride out a softening global economy. He said that while its competitors are pinning their hopes on the acceleration of existing business, NetApp is making a strong grab for market share.

“We’re going to win by our commitment to each other, how intense we are, and how much we are willing to sacrifice to win.”

Besides communicating strategy, the summit also provided a platform for NetApp to reward its highest achieving partners. Comedian Russell Gilbert acted as MC for the awards ceremony gala dinner, peppering a blue-tinged standup routine with a healthy bout of interactive activities ranging from rib tickling to risqué.

The coveted Australian partner of the year award was snapped up by XSI Data Solutions, which also swept in to win new partner of the year and take out top partner honours in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Software and services supplier, Empired, was awarded partner of the year status for Western Australia. New business deal of the year was won by Fujitsu New Zealand, which also landed top partner honours for New Zealand.

With post-dinner drinks running well into the night, NetApp took the very thoughtful step of providing a five-step recovery pack featuring a bottle of water and cup, a Berocca tablet, breath mints and some mirrored sunglasses. The packs proved a hit with many bleary-eyed attendees the following day.

Mike Riley, NetApp’s global systems engineer, wrapped up the summit with an examination of the trends set to drive the storage market over the coming years. Riley highlighted de-duplication, storage virtualisation, data centre Ethernet and flash storage as the technologies set to meet demands to manage ever-increasing volumes of corporate data.