SolarWinds Transform Partner Summit: SolarWinds Updates Partner Program
There are always opportunities for partners to do more with SolarWinds, the company said.
![SolarWinds Transform kicks off SolarWinds Transform kicks off](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltdc72f51d8799d5fa/65b193a9afc23e040ae81dcb/Transformer.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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SolarWinds’ Ann Wilkins said feedback from partners prompted the Transform Partner Program updates.
“We never want to make any decisions on our programs or our incentives in a vacuum, and we have a lot of partners that we have very close relationships with,” she said. “I consider them consultative in nature, and it’s the same thing with many of our distributors. So they were absolutely a part of it. They are always looking for tools and ways that we can easily enable them to help them accelerate faster. So that was really the need for it. And the complexity of the IT environment is happening so rapidly that our partners are seeking our help to help them get ready to address those things in a quicker way.”
There are always opportunities for partners to do more with SolarWinds, Wilkins said.
“There are many partners that may just sell one of our lines of business,” she said. “They may just be an ITSM partner, as an example, but they're very interested in the trends in observability, so they may want to come and learn more about observability, and some of the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities and technologies, and innovations that we're building there. I also think that partners are always looking for companies that are easy to do business with, so we're very focused on the ease of doing business, but also how can they become profitable. What is in it for them? We're very much interested in developing and continuing relationships with our partners that are investing in and with us, and we will do the same.”
An entire segment of the partner summit is dedicated to SolarWinds’ product innovations, Wilkins said.
“AIOps and ML capabilities will be a key component that we will do a deeper dive on,” she said. “Some of the innovations that we are including and talking about include ML and AI in our SolarWinds observability and ITSM solutions, and we really are hoping to see more partners leverage these new technologies to strengthen their relationships with existing customers, but also use as a shift to help create net-new relationships with new customers to drive organizational growth.”
SolarWinds is gaining new partners, but it’s not using a “spray and pray” methodology to attract them, Wilkins said.
“We want to be very strategic about the partners that we do business with,” she said. “It's almost the less-is-more thought process. While we're absolutely adding new partners, we look to our distributors as well to help us with the SMB long-tail relationships that we can't necessarily reach. So we’re strategically partnering with the right partners who have the specialist capabilities of our products, but also working with our distributors to help us with reach and scale.”
The partner summit is structured around gathering feedback from SolarWinds partners, Wilkins said.
“On day two, we have a partner advisory board for three hours, where we bring our executives to the table, we ask for their executives to come to the table, and that is strictly a feedback session,” she said. “And then on day three, we have even more intimate sessions with our partners, single partner sessions with SolarWinds executives, so we can continue on that feedback theme. It's very important to us.”
The idea behind the partner summit is to get partners “excited and motivated” to take SolarWinds with them in their businesses, Wilkins said.
“We have a lot of partners that are loyal to SolarWinds, but we have a lot of partners that only have SolarWinds as one part of their portfolio,” she said. “So for those that are loyal, I think that's just a great way to strengthen and cement those relationships. But for those that are doing business with us and perhaps our competitors, it’s how we can get them to consider leading with SolarWinds first because they've left the session really understanding what our strategy is and how our products are really changing the market. That's the hope.”
The idea behind the partner summit is to get partners “excited and motivated” to take SolarWinds with them in their businesses, Wilkins said.
“We have a lot of partners that are loyal to SolarWinds, but we have a lot of partners that only have SolarWinds as one part of their portfolio,” she said. “So for those that are loyal, I think that's just a great way to strengthen and cement those relationships. But for those that are doing business with us and perhaps our competitors, it’s how we can get them to consider leading with SolarWinds first because they've left the session really understanding what our strategy is and how our products are really changing the market. That's the hope.”
SOLARWINDS TRANSFORM — At this week's SolarWinds Transform Partner Summit Americas, SolarWinds unveiled three new programs under its Transform Partner Program, which it launched in October 2022.
The event, taking place in Miami, is part of the SolarWinds Transform Partner Summit series hosted by the company across Europe, Asia and the Americas as an opportunity for its global partners to network, learn and celebrate their successes alongside the observability and IT management company.
Anna Wilkins, SolarWinds’ vice president of sales execution, said the company launched the Transform Partner Program in tiers with rebates.
“We are announcing three new programs that are under that Transform umbrella,” she said. “The first one is around what we call the 'Big 3 Acceleration.' That is helping our partners accelerate around observability, IT service management (ITSM) and database. The second one is what we call Fast Track. So it's how we help our partners that are in a lower tier get to a higher tier faster by leaning in with them and helping them with business planning to get them to an enhanced and higher tier within our program.”
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SolarWinds' Anna WIlkins
The third program is around services certification, Wilkins said.
“So our partners who are performing professional services, and we all know that's how our partners make money, how do we, SolarWinds, certify them in that professional services arena, and once we certify them, we actually publish that on our website as well as our partner portal,” she said.
The Focus of SolarWinds Transform Summit
The summit is focused on transforming, Wilkins said.
“There are three key objectives that we hope to achieve with our partners while we're there,” she said. “No. 1 is we really just want to engage, enable and motivate our partners; No 2 is really to position our partners to cross-sell and upsell across our entire portfolio, so we'll have a little bit of discussion around product and product innovation. And then lastly, we really want to help create net-new growth opportunities for our partners through our 2024 Transform program enhancements.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for more from SolarWinds Transform Partner Summit Americas.
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