Vertiv Partner Summit: New MSP Program, Big R&D Push
The theme of the 2021 partner summit is "disrupt IT."
![R&D R&D](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blte35c639e9e25e6b7/652451aeba04f7e5ea51aff0/RD.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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Pete Klanian, Vertiv’s vice president of channel sales, said the Vertiv Partner Program allows partners to lock down deals quickly and easily.
“You’re going to get rewards for bringing us opportunities both in the form of VIP points and back-end rebates,” he said. “We give you access to turnkey demand generation and MDF funds. And of course, we give you an array of online tools through our partner portal.”
Vertiv offers customer support nationally through local offices with experts, including salespeople and engineers, Klanian said. It provides national coverage “whether you’re a national partner, a branch office of a national partner or a regional channel partner looking for support from a vendor.”
“Not only do we have the support in the field, but we have local offices with access to technology and the hands-on ability to go see what it is that you’re selling to your customers for both you, if you’re interested in getting more training, or for your customers themselves,” he said.
Next month, Vertiv will roll out its new MSP Certification program. It’s supported by the vendor’s MSP Control Center solution.
The solution gives MSPs access to a cloud-based monitoring and management tool, Klanian said.
“(The solution offers) the ability to go out and discover assets, whether it’s our products or one of our competitor’s, understand what stage of life they’re in, and offer you as our partner a blueprint to go help your customer improve that physical foundation of the network,” he said. “It’s all done remotely and through a single pane of glass. It can be used on a mobile device, or on your laptop or desktop. And the whole point here is for you to add value, drive new discussions with your customers and generate revenue. ”
The vendor also announced an offering to provide anything Vertiv as a service. This also will roll out next month.
“We see this as a trend in the industry and we are offering you, our partners, a way to pay monthly for the Vertiv solutions that you’ll be providing to your customers,” Klanian said. “Many of you are doing this yourselves and we’d love for you to partner with Vertiv. Take our hardware, services and software, and bundle it under your own IT as-a-service offering if you’d like to do so. However, if you’d also like to be paying your vendor monthly for solutions rather than going to your own finance company and doing it on your own, we have an offering and we have a way to do that.”
Klanian also highlighted Vertiv‘s updated marketing experience for partners.
“The traditional way of growing your business is also through marketing,” he said. “So we’ve given you access to all kinds of marketing opportunities, whether it’s through email or social, or a more customized event. We have people to support you. We have a showcase of content and content syndication. We can allow you to do social media marketing with Vertiv, and you have a team of people here helping you innovate and drive the messaging that you’d like to drive.”
CEO Rob Johnson highlighted Vertiv’s plans to double its R&D investment over the next two years.
“Today, you’re either being disrupted or you’re disrupting,” he said. “There’s no other place to hang out. One of the things we early on wanted to differentiate ourselves in is providing innovative new solutions. And we needed to increase our R&D efforts to be able to do that. That’s how you’re going to see Vertiv differentiate. We’re going to actually allow you to sell more of the solution, more of the system. And innovation is not just in products; it’s in how we configure those products, deliver those products and how they use the products. It’s the whole process, what we’ll call the customer view, the Vertiv customer experience. That’s where we’re investing our dollars. You’ll have unique and differentiated offerings.”
John Hewitt is Vertiv’s Americas president. He said the vendor is emphasizing diversity in innovation. That includes an increasing number of women in its channel leadership.
“One of the things I’m super proud of right now is that we’ve got a more diverse set of viewpoints on this team than we’ve ever had,” he said. “It’s a testament to Vertiv’s commitment to the channel, and also how we’re thinking about the market that we serve and fostering innovation through diversity.”
Vertiv is bringing forth a number of “really creative solutions,” Hewitt said.
“Some of those are augmented reality to help our channel partners navigate in their markets and help them add value to their customers, and help them visualize some of the Vertiv tools and solutions in their customer’s real market opportunities,” he said. “And there’s more robust training.”
Also during the partner summit, Vertiv announced the winners of its 2020 North America Partner Awards. The vendor selected the award-winning U.S. and Canadian partner companies based on their commitment to business management and leadership, personal and professional integrity, and responsiveness to customer needs.
The award winners are:
● North American Partner of the Year –Insight
● U.S. Partner of the Year – WWT
● Canada Partner of the Year – CDW Canada
● Regional Partner of the Year – Western U.S. – Computacenter Fusionstorm
● Regional Partner of the Year – Central U.S. – Camera Corner/Connecting Point
● Regional Partner of the Year – Eastern U.S. – Step CG
● Regional Partner of the Year – western Canada – EB Horsman
● Regional Partner of the Year – central Canada – Anixter Canada
● Regional Partner of the Year – eastern Canada – Javco Mission Critical
● Electrical Distributor of the Year – AccuTech
● IT Distributor of the Year – Tech Data
● Federal Partner of the Year – Dell
● SLED Partner of the Year – ePlus
● Edge Solutions Partner of the Year – Presidio
● Health Care Partner of the Year –CDW
● Power Partner of the Year – Sphere
● Thermal Partner of the Year – Allcom Global Services
● IT Management Partner of the Year – SHI
● Services Partner of the Year – Systems Supply
Also during the partner summit, Vertiv announced the winners of its 2020 North America Partner Awards. The vendor selected the award-winning U.S. and Canadian partner companies based on their commitment to business management and leadership, personal and professional integrity, and responsiveness to customer needs.
The award winners are:
● North American Partner of the Year –Insight
● U.S. Partner of the Year – WWT
● Canada Partner of the Year – CDW Canada
● Regional Partner of the Year – Western U.S. – Computacenter Fusionstorm
● Regional Partner of the Year – Central U.S. – Camera Corner/Connecting Point
● Regional Partner of the Year – Eastern U.S. – Step CG
● Regional Partner of the Year – western Canada – EB Horsman
● Regional Partner of the Year – central Canada – Anixter Canada
● Regional Partner of the Year – eastern Canada – Javco Mission Critical
● Electrical Distributor of the Year – AccuTech
● IT Distributor of the Year – Tech Data
● Federal Partner of the Year – Dell
● SLED Partner of the Year – ePlus
● Edge Solutions Partner of the Year – Presidio
● Health Care Partner of the Year –CDW
● Power Partner of the Year – Sphere
● Thermal Partner of the Year – Allcom Global Services
● IT Management Partner of the Year – SHI
● Services Partner of the Year – Systems Supply
Vertiv unveiled new MSP and Vertiv-as-a-service programs during its virtual partner summit on Tuesday.
The theme of the 2021 Vertiv Partner Summit is “disrupt IT.” The company’s portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services extend from the cloud to the network edge.
Pete Klanian is Vertiv’s vice president of channel sales. He said his company is using the word “disrupt” in a very positive way.
Vertiv’s Pete Klanian
“We are driving innovation and adding more value to everything we’re doing, not only for our customers but also for you, our trusted partners,” he said. “We are the largest solely focused provider of mission-critical IT infrastructure. And we are not part of a larger conglomerate and just a small division of that company.”
Vertiv plays in a $12 billion annual global market, Klanian said.
“Everyone knows that today, data is everywhere,” he said. “And the last year of work from home, learn from home and do everything from home has only accelerated the pace of change in the innovation from endpoint to the edge. Our part in that complexity is providing the foundation, meaning stable power, the right thermal and cooling environment, and in case of an emergency, how you get back-end connectivity if the network’s down. All of these are where we can help you solve customer problems.”
Market Opportunities, R&D
The biggest market opportunities are in retail, high-tech manufacturing, smart logistics and anything in the outdoor segment, Klanian said.
Vertiv became a public company in February 2020 after completing a $5.3 billion merger with GS Acquisition Holdings, a public company led by investor David Cote. He’s now Vertiv’s executive chairman.
Rob Johnson is Vertiv’s CEO.
Vertiv’s Rob Johnson
“We’re very excited about the new ownership structure being public and being able to double our R&D over the next couple of years,” he said. “And I think you’ve seen that already through some of the innovative solutions, but there’s a lot more to come.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for everything you need to know from the Vertiv Partner Summit.
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