Commvault Unveils Big Changes to Partner Program

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Commvault’s recent string of new executives hired for its partner and alliance organization continues to prompt new initiatives that fortify the vendor’s commitment to expand its worldwide indirect business.

The provider of enterprise backup, recovery, and data management across hybrid environments on Tuesday announced significant changes to its partner program that support enablement and engagement.

The new investments, which hammer home Commvault’s mission to fortify its commitment to its partners, leave almost no piece of its Partner Advantage program untouched. And, in combination with the partner program redo, Commvault also announced consolidation of products from more than 20 offerings into four packaged product sets.

Commvault’s Ralph Nimergood

“We’ve announced the beginning of [what will be] a set of rolling thunder announcements in the next weeks and months that are powerful testaments and reinforcement to our partner community,” Ralph Nimergood, vice president, worldwide channels and alliances at Commvault, told us. “For the partners who have been with for a number of years, they will feel very good about what we’ve announced. For the partners who’ve yet to join the Commvault bandwagon, this will provide a good impetus for them to consider Commvault in their portfolio.”

There are five categories of items included in the program changes.

The first is around a partner-program redesign and simplification effort. The name, Partner Advantage, remains the same, but partners are being notified about changes to its partner-engagement framework. They include taking eight tracks and more than a dozen benefit streams and reducing it to three tracks – solution provider, distribution and alliances tracks – as well as simplifying benefits, and even adding new benefit structures.

“We’re moving to an evergreen design, so we don’t have to keep doing annual and biannual [changes], making it a faster path for partners to move through our tiering structure,” said Nimergood.

Commvault is making additional investments in business-development funds for reseller and service-provider partners. It’s also making it easier to apply for and receive the funds.

The second is a restructuring of the company’s packaging and pricing algorithms for its suite of software products — from more than 20 down to four. The newly packaged product sets include: Commvault Complete Backup & Recovery; Commvault HyperScale Technology; Commvault Orchestrate; and Commvault Activate.

The third change a refreshed partner portal, which is the front door to all things Commvault, such as content, resources and tools. Nimergood said that the company re-engineered its quoting and bidding tools to match its simplification packaging and pricing efforts.

Next is a robust Partner Demand Center, the vendor’s concierge center for channel marketing resources, which is accessible via the partner portal. The Partner Demand Center provides partners with access to a marketing concierge team to help activate and execute marketing campaigns. It also provides partners with the ability to seamlessly stream content direct content directly to their websites and social-media platforms.

Finally, a new 24/7 Partner Success Desk – an always-on infrastructure – is now available for partners worldwide. The new resource provides assistance with a myriad of questions — technical, sales, product and so on. The Partner Success Desk can be accessed via the partner portal or via phone.

Commvault continues to redistribute and invest in human capital against its partner go-to-market strategy.

“All of these things taken together, we believe will change the dynamics, engagement and loyalty of the partner community out there,” said Nimergood, who noted that in excess of 90 percent of Commvault’s business flows through the channel.