CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
12 March 2007
Company News
EMC Velocity² Partner Program Drives Solution Selling Across EMEA
EMC Corporation announced several enhancements to the EMC Velocity² Partner Program for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). These changes are designed to help EMC partners accelerate their profitability by delivering complete solutions (hardware, software and services) to meet customer needs.
The enhancements highlight EMC's commitment to accelerating partner profitability and improved ease of doing business with EMC through delivering more services revenue to Authorized Network Services Partners, streamlined tiering system, a simplified accreditation process, enhanced training and sales support and a new revenue-based reward program.
The program further addresses the channel's need for more customer-focused solutions with the creation of the EMC Solutions Group. The group will provide EMC's partner community with a quarterly solutions roadmap and appropriate training and marketing materials to deliver those solutions.
Willem Hendrickx, EMEA Vice President, Channel and Mid-market at EMC said "In 2006 we asked our valued partners what enhancement they would like to see made to the EMC Velocity² Partner Program and we listened to their recommendations. This program has been designed with the intention to provide our partners with tools to work more efficiently with their customers and to gain improved profits from doing business with EMC. The Velocity² Partner Program both strengthens our relationships with our current partners and provides the opportunity to welcome new ones."
Partners will also benefit from EMC's renewed focus on the delivering more services opportunities to EMC Authorized Network Services (ASN) Partners. Members of ASN can choose to be certified to deliver a range of EMC's information infrastructure services, including consulting, implementation, integration and support. To aid partners that are interested in achieving certification, EMC has simplified web-based solution-based training, which will reduce costs to partners. ASN certified partners can engage with customers on more projects, enabling partners to capture more revenue per deal.
The Velocity² Partner Program tier structure has been consolidated from five levels to three levels:
Signature Solution Center Partners - Partners with alliance and expertise in Microsoft, Oracle, SAP or Cisco and who own a specialist EMC datacenter with the ability to demonstrate EMC Solutions in these environments
Premier Solution Partners - Partners focused on selling EMC Proven Solutions and that access the program through the EMC distribution network
Affiliate Partners - Partners selling a limited number of EMC products will now have easier access to EMC's Velocity² Program via a simple web-based contract allowing them same day access to sell EMC products via EMC's distribution network
These three tiers ensure every level of partner need is addressed, from a reseller that occasionally sells EMC solutions through to partners that offer a complete EMC experience through dedicated EMC demonstrations at Solution Centers. EMC has also replaced the points-based system, which currently determines at which tier a partner is rewarded, by a system based on revenue.
One of the key foundations of the enhanced Velocity² Program is the creation of Solution Centers for Signature Partners. Signature Solution Center Partners (SCP) will be required to create a Solution Center to showcase EMC's solutions for consolidation, backup, archiving and protection. The Solution Centers will be used for testing, training, development and demonstrations, ensuring partners can deliver the best possible sales experience for customers.
The accreditation process for each of the tiers has been greatly simplified and streamlined, making it quicker, easier and less costly to become accredited by EMC. Individuals will be able to advance their sales and/or pre-sales technical skills across EMC software, hardware and services without needing to become accredited across all of EMC's product specialties.
The EMC Velocity² Partner Program enhancements will be effective on 1 July 2007.
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