HPE Unleashes New Partner Ready Incentives For High Value Products, Services

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise on Monday unveiled changes to its HPE Partner Ready program with increased rebates for partners centered on the high-growth, high value next generation infrastructure products and services .

Targeted HPE growth and value products and services include HPE Synergy composable infrastructure and HPE SimpliVity hyper-converged infrastructure, HPE Nimble and HPE 3PAR storage, software such as HPE OneView and HPE OneSphere, and services-focused offerings like HPE GreenLake and HPE Datacenter Care.

The changes to the HPE Partner Ready program are aimed in part at simplifying the program for HPE's channel partners, said Paul Hunter, worldwide partner sales leader for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor.

"Simplicity is the key to providing a stable and a predictable program to help partners evolve to meet the demand of customers," Hunter told CRN.

[Related: Partners Expect To See Bigger Payoff For HPE Software- Defined Stalwarts OneView, OneSphere]

One major update is a change in the rebate structure for channel partners with a new emphasis on growth areas of the IT business, Hunter said.

HPE has offered target-based incentives in the past, with rebates of a certain percentage up to so many dollars, and a different percentage above that, he said. "Going forward, we want to offer the same payment for the partner's first dollar, the hundredth dollar, and the millionth dollar," he said.

To do that, HPE will start offering partners rebates of one times, three times, or five times the normal rebate for selling targeted high-growth, high-value offerings, Hunter said.

For instance, selling a server will earn a partner the normal rebate. But if HPE software is bundled with that server, that partner will earn a rebate of up to five times the normal rebate, depending on the software, he said.

The higher growth and value rebates will accelerate partners' move into higher tiers of rebates, Hunter said.

"Maybe today, you need to sell $800,000 worth of product to get to the silver tier," he said. "Now, if you sell $300,000 of the right storage worth three-times the value for rebates, it will immediately take you to the silver tier. We want to accelerate partners who invest in the value and growth portfolio."

HPE is simplifying its program in other ways, Hunter said. For instance, its services rebate has been simplified with only three different rebate rates as opposed to having a different rebate for each service. Furthermore, the rebates are also now consistent worldwide, he said.

"Our goal is to make things predictable," he said. "Partners need predictable. They aren't making investments on a quarterly basis. They are focused on a yearly basis."

Global consistency is also important for partners dealing with customers across national borders, Hunter said.

"U.S. partners are doing more projects in the U.S. that also get deployed in Europe," he said. "So they can do the architecture and design in the U.S., maybe load the software, and then ship overseas. It's helpful to growing an international business to know the program is the same in multiple countries."

To further help channel partners, HPE is simplifying its technical enablement program by gradually rolling out new capabilities to provide technical content in a single location and to build communities around competencies, Hunter said. The new technical enablement program is based on a program already in place in Asia called TechPro Academy, although the program name my change over time, he said.

Clearly knowing rewards and benefits in advance is important to channel partners, said Steve Tepedino, president and CEO of IT Partners, a Tempe, Ariz.-based solution provider and HPE channel partner.

"HPE is telling us in advance, this is what we are doing and what we are going to pay you for," Tepedino told CRN. "It helps get our team focused on the right products."

Simplified benefits provides partners with clarity so they can over time prepare for the kind of activities needed to close deals, Tepedino said.

"As a partner, you like to see a rebate check," he said. "But you don’t want to get a rebate check and not know what it is going to be. That makes it hard to plan. If you know in advance, you can make plans in advance."

HPE is letting partners know what is important to the vendor, Tepedino said. "That lets us connect the dots to know what to do next, how to make the money, how long it will take," he said. "Simplification of the channel program helps us do that. If I could ask one thing of our channel partners, it would be: Put everything together in a simple fashion."

The updates to the HPE Partner Ready program take effect at the start of HPE’s new fiscal year on November 1.