New Relic Channel Leader Eager to Expand Partnerships

Larissa Crandall, the new channel leader at New Relic, intends to provide as many opportunities for partners to present the company's observability products as possible.

New Relic announced Crandall as its new channel leader and VP of partners and alliances on Monday. The company brought on the former Veeam executive to expand its partnerships and alliances and improve sales overall. But what does that look like for partners and for New Relic's customers in the long run?

Channel Futures got a chance to sit down with Crandall to discuss her choice to join New Relic, what partners can expect and the future of the company.

New Relic's Larissa Crandall

Channel Futures: What led to you joining with New Relic to lead its channel program?

Larissa Crandall: The first and foremost reason is the technology. I've been following New Relic for a long time. And it goes without saying, if you have an incredible product, that's one that you always want to share with the channel. New Relic is at such a pivotal moment as a company, and we want to have partners be inclusive on that journey with us in that next stage of growth. I also get to redefine and build everything, from the company's partner program to its approach to enablement. Finally, when looking at it from a customer-centric approach, we get to build the entire partner ecosystem and serve VARs and MSPs.

That approach is ensuring that you have all routes to market that are available to [however] a customer wants to buy and consume technology. These days, it's really important for all vendors to have that approach. So if they want to go through the marketplaces, we have that available. If they want to work with their trusted VAR, then we have that connection with them. Whoever they're engaged with, they have that trusted resource for them.

CF: What plans does New Relic have to expand its presence in the market?

LC: First and foremost, enablement is a big piece for me, as is certification. As I'm looking through all of the training that we have today, ensuring that it's at the level where partners are able to consume it and I and understand the value, the use cases, the places that we fit within their customer base, so they are able to identify opportunities very easily and then bring us into to help them, support them, and to close them. That's one of the things as partners have reached out. That's one of the key pieces for me recently. Just in the past few days, partners have been reaching out and asking for more. We're also ensuring that we have a world-class partner program, as I've built before, and ensuring that it's profitable and it's meaningful to them for partners.

CF: What changes should partners be expecting in the near term?

LC: We plan to redesign the partner program and refine the routes to market and that customer-centric approach to ensure that we have all of the different various routes across the ecosystem defined and engaged. We will be building out the partner organization substantially and that will lean into dedicated resources within our global footprint. I think another piece would be, they can expect that we will show up with some strong alliances out there. These include ... AWS and Microsoft. Google, Nvidia and the hyperscalers are also on the list.

CF: What are some trends that you're keeping an eye on, or find particularly interesting?

LC: I think the exciting piece is cloud spend. It's one where there's a pain point there, and there are a lot of use cases, and there are places that new Relic can help with that. We're seeing the spend continuing to rise alongside AI adoption for a lot of companies right now. Partners are trying to get their arms around the technology and understand how they articulate that back to customers. So I think those are the two big pieces, and that's where New Relic fits in and provides that observability piece.

CF: What are some struggles or areas of resistance you anticipate running into?

LC: How fast can we go? I think it's one where we're going to build this pretty quickly. This includes everything from the partner program to building up the teams and dedicated resources across the globe. I just hired an Americas channel leader who just started a couple days ago alongside me. A large percentage of our business is in the Americas region, and I wanted to make sure we have ample coverage there. Once that's established, we'll be building up the teams around the rest of the world.