VMworld 2021: New Partner Incentives Announced to Drive Multicloud

VMWARE VMWORLD — VMware has announced new and expanded incentives to help partners provide services to customers on the path to multicloud.

VMware has updated its Customer Lifecycle Incentives (CLI) portfolio. The more partners do, and “the closer they are to their customers on their transformation journey,” the more they earn. The expanded incentives are geared toward partner-to-partner collaboration, and reward services that drive deployment, cloud consumption, application modernization, and accelerate overall sales.

VMware says it provides partner rewards and incentives throughout the customer’s journey. This ranges from assessing their needs, piloting solutions through proofs-of-concept to deploying, activating and consuming VMware services. VMware partners can also take advantage of customers’ software-as-a-service transformations and evolving post-sales opportunities.

A new deployment incentive supports the deployment of new VMware solutions without impacting current customer infrastructure, says the vendor. It also offers simplified implementation process for VMware services.

Technical Assessments and Proof of Concept also now provide support for Cloud Universal and VMware Cloud on AWS/Dell. There are also additional earnings for non-transacting, services-only partners.

Scott Miller is senior director, strategic partnerships, World Wide Technology. He says the enhancements reward his team for testing business requirements and use cases with customers through its Advanced Technology Center. This often reveals “significant customer cost saving and app migration opportunities.”

More Incentives

There is also Partner-to-Partner Accelerator expansion to APJ and AMER. This rewards “sell-through” partners who identify opportunities and book eligible orders. They hand off to the “orchestrate with” partners to activate the solution and facilitate consumption of VMware services.

There is also an incentive for “cloud activation and consumption growth.” This incentivizes partners that grow customer activation of VMware services across their customer portfolio.

In a statement, VMware says CLI “enables partners to be rewarded for value delivered throughout their customers’ multicloud transformation journeys. Incentives are mapped to customer needs before, during and after sale — with additional rewards for partners that team up to drive even greater customer value.”

Cloud Universal

Newly enabled for the channel, VMware says Cloud Universal 3.0 helps partners accelerate customer journeys to multicloud.

Cloud Universal – a single, cross-platform management solution – simplifies multicloud complexities for partners, says VMware. It allows them to be agnostic in response to changing customer preferences and adaptable to customer needs.

Now partner-enabled, Cloud Universal gives partners and customers the flexibility and tools to build multicloud strategies.

“Its simplified subscription model helps partners lead customers on the path to multicloud … With the addition of VMware Tanzu Standard, Cloud Universal unlocks application modernization efforts without having to initiate new procurement efforts or complicated billing.”

Success 360

Elsewhere, partners now play greater roles in customer success delivery with VMware Success 360. This is a SKU-based offering that guides customers through all the stages of their “journey.” For the first time, Master Services Competency (MSC) partners can collaborate with VMware on Success 360 delivery. This means owning specific components within the customer success plan that match their capabilities.

VMware Marketplace

Also announced is commercial transactability on the VMware Marketplace. This, says VMware, enables partners to reach customers, drive leads, and build net-new revenue streams from their VMware-compatible solutions.

The VMware Marketplace now has “buy and sell” capabilities to enable customers and partners, respectively, to leverage the new marketplace-driven economy. Customers can now buy certified and validated partner solutions directly from the VMware Marketplace and deploy these solutions to VMware endpoints.