HPE Distribution Leader Gammon: Barrage Of HPE Incentives Driving Game-Changing Partner Profitability
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Director of North America Distribution Gary Gammon Monday told several hundred XChange attendees that the hybrid IT company's across-the -board sales incentives are driving big profitability gains for partners.
HPE, in fact, has a slew of stackable incentives on everything from new silicon root of trust secure Gen10 servers to the explosive hyper-converged SimpliVity product to Nimble storage and Aruba wireless, said Gammon.
The HPE second quarter promotions and incentives include up to $11,000 on a new logo, 33 percent off 3Par Renewals for Medallion partners, and up to $575 Engage and Grow Points with HPE's Gen10 ProLiant DL385 Smart Buy through distributors, said Gammon.
HPE also has trade-in incentives of $400 per volume server, $2,500 to $5,000 for SimpliVity and Synergy and $50 per terabyte for storage, said Gammon. "There is a large installed base of HPE legacy blades with Gen8 and Gen9 products," he said. "This is a great opportunity to leverage these programs to take customers up to our new Gen10 secure server- the most secure server in the world."
On the hot-selling Aruba wireless product line, HPE is offering five for the price of three internet access points, mobility master bundles and competitive win promotions.
"The percentages get pretty large when you start stacking incentives," Gammon told CRN in an interview after the presentation. "Your ability to money on the backend as a partner is really big. Partners need to build a business plan around demand generation, get with their distributor and then leverage these programs."
Partners can multiply HPE incentives by selling across the full HPE portfolio, said Gammon. "If you are selling servers today with us and you haven't taken a look at Nimble or 3Par, you need to take the time to look at what it can do from a multiplier perspective on the backend dollars and the rewards that we have for the (Partner Ready) program," he said. "If you are just doing storage, you should look at servers and Aruba. We designed the program to provide additional benefits for selling the full portfolio."
As partners scale up through the HPE Partner Ready program from Silver to Gold to Platinum they can double their incentives, said Gammon.
HPE has also streamlined and simplified its channel go-to-market with "no-touch pricing" for Medallion partners (Silver, Gold or Platinum) effective Jan. 2, said Gammon. "That's allowing partners to execute deals with aggressive pricing without having to get HPE involved," he said.
In addition, HPE has centralized deal registration system with a single system for all HPE products and relaunched a new version of its SmartBuy Express SKUs that are in inventory with distributors and can be delivered in just one or two days.
Distribution is a "key" go to market route for HPE, said Gammon. "We have great distributors that support our reseller partners," he said. "There is a lot of joint investment between HPE and our distributors with technical capabilities. They have the ability to do complete integration and support on all our products."
US distributors, in fact, support 15,000 HPE configurations per month, he said. Another big HPE distributor differentiator: Solutions Centers across the U.S. where partners can make sales presentations to customers, said Gammon. The average close rate on those presentations is 90 percent, he said.
Gammon encouraged partners to team with D&H Distributing, one of the distributors teaming with HPE at the XChange conference. "They are a great partner with us today, and we are seeing very strong growth today through their partner community," he said. "We have about 2,000 customers buying from D&H. They are doing a fantastic job." D&H has also built out a "hero" program aimed at helping partners to move up through the medallion ranks by selling across the portfolio, he said.
Mike Hadley, co-founder and CEO of iCorps, a Boston, Mass, solution provider, said he sees the HPE stackable incentives as a profit-packed game-changer for partners.
"I am definitely going to take a closer look at HPE," he said. "They are being aggressive and trying to lead the market with these incentives. I am interested in capitalizing on these programs and the HPE desire to grow the business. These are great spiffs that will go right to the bottom line."
Hadley praised HPE for streamlining and simplifying its partner program. "I like the fact that they are being agile," he said. "They don't have the bureaucracy of the old HP. That makes HPE stand out."
Manny Via, founder and president of Via Technology, San Antonio, said he sees the HPE stackable incentives as a big differentiator. "I love the fact that I can put all my wireless, storage, compute and networking together and get more dollars," he said.
Via predicted that the HPE acquisitions of SimpliVity and Nimble combined with a 100 percent channel model is going to drive the channel sales needle going forward. "That 100 percent channel commitment is gold for us," he said. "That is how we make our money."