Lenovo 360 To Launch New Partner Hub, Incentives And Tools

‘We’ll be introducing a completely new set of learning paths to enable your sellers and also provide you with new partner designations to further differentiate yourself in the market,’ says Lenovo’s Jeff Taylor at XChange Best of Breed.

Lenovo is “reimagining” its breakthrough global channel framework, Lenovo 360, by injecting new incentives and sales enablement tools to help drive revenues and market differentiation.

“We’ll be introducing a completely new set of learning paths to enable your sellers and also provide you with new partner designations to further differentiate yourself in the market,” said Jeff Taylor, executive director of global channel programs, competencies, marketing and solutions for Lenovo.

“We’re reimagining our program and our incentive stack to be more reflective of the roles that you play, versus it just being a transactional model,” said Taylor, during his keynote at XChange Best of Breed 2022 today.

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Taylor said Lenovo 360 will soon offer a new hub for channel partners that will be full of new tools, marketing and sales enablement opportunities.

“ We’re bringing the Lenovo 360 Solutions Hub to you that has content configuration capabilities, schematics, sales enablement, marketing content—to help us and help you sell our channel ready solutions into the market,” said Taylor.

Lenovo 360 Partner Framework

Launched in January, Lenovo 360 is the company’s new partner framework designed to provide easier access to Lenovo’s cast portfolio of devices, infrastructure and services.

Lenovo 360 is aimed at helping partners capitalize on service-led and as-a-service opportunities with their customers to drive net new revenue streams.

Rebate accelerator programs inside Lenovo 360, such as Better Together and TruScale Accelerator, allow partners to increase earnings up to 30 percent or more on sales across Lenovo’s portfolio and through TruScale as-a-service.

“ Our industry tries to pigeonhole the channel into certain categories like, ‘You’re a VAR. You’re an MSP. You’re a systems integrator.’ When in reality, you probably play all those roles depending on the needs of your customer at that particular point in time,” said Taylor. “So it’s our obligation to our investments in programs, tools, and people, to support the various roles that you’re playing.”

Michael Ellison, vice president of sales, SMB, and mid-market at Cary, N.C.-based Lenovo partner BlueAlly, has been successfully selling Lenovo laptops and endpoint devices for years.

Ellison said BlueAlly is planning to “reengage” with Lenovo next year as Lenovo 360 takes off.

“We’re hoping to get reengaged with Lenovo. So we can catapult some of their other offerings in 2023,” said Ellison.

Lenovo The ‘Channel Centric, Channel-First’ Leader

Taylor said Lenovo 360 will be the company’s go-to-market partner strategy for the foreseeable future.

“Lenovo 360 is our evolutionary foundation for our journey together. The last 10 years have been amazing,” said Taylor in front of more than 100 channel partners at XChange Best of Breed 2022 on Tuesday. “The next 10 years—I don’t know guys, do we want them to be as hectic as the last ten years? They probably will be here. But because of Lenovo 360, we feel like we’ve met a foundation for us to evolve and become better versions of ourselves collectively.”

“We’re still the most channel centric channel first vendor in industry,” Taylor added.

XChange Best of Breed takes place in Atlanta Oct. 10-11.