VMware Pumps Up Margin Opportunities for Partners

VMware (NYSE: VMW) is touting recent enhancements to its Advantage Plus deal registration program that lower the minimum deal size and ease the process to help partners bump profits through stronger margins.

Specifically, VMware has dropped the deal registration ceiling by 40 percent to $6,000 from $10,000; agreed to validate new accounts — and the corresponding 10 percent discount — at the time of registration rather than the time of sales (as was done previously); and simplified the opportunity registration form.

VMware’s message to partners? It’s a simple one: You can make money with us. Fundamentally, the vendor wants its partners to understand that through its margin-improving offerings, partners can make more sticking with VMware than its rivals.

At its core, the partner strategy is, of course, linked to VMware’s grand plan to articulate and execute better than anyone else the software-defined data center, to position itself at the center of that blueprint for the future, making the argument that margin-building services for partners lies in that model.

And, now’s the time to set that foundation, building on the 10 additional margin points the company is offering to partners for diving into new competencies and another 10 points for signing on new customers, with a boost to the deal registration program. For sure, 20 extra margin points is nothing to sneeze at and neither is a lowered opportunity-registration ceiling.

As for the deal-registration upgrade, in a blog and video post Riadh Dridi, VMware director, Americas Partner Marketing and Alliances, noted to partners the 40 percent reduction in the minimum deal size “will allow you to protect your presales investments on a greater number of deals.”

In addition, VMware, going on partner feedback, will grant the 10 percent new account rebate in a more timely way, validating it “at the time of registration instead of at the time of sale. This means you will have visibility into your margin potential much earlier in the sales cycle,” he said.

Dridi added the new opportunity registration form is intended as a “single point of entry for all registration programs” that should save partners time in data entry.