Partners: Hope-Hunter Duo Is A ‘One Plus One Equals Three’ HPE GreenLake Game Changer

‘I think the appointment of George Hope working with Paul Hunter is a huge deal,’ says Advizex Technologies President C.R. Howdyshell. ‘Putting George Hope in that role demonstrates HPE’s significant commitment to the channel. George teaming with (former HPE Worldwide Channel Chief) Paul Hunter amounts to one plus one equals three for HPE’s GreenLake strategy. Those two together are going to drive shoulder to shoulder selling with partners on GreenLake.’

The combination of George Hope as the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise worldwide channel chief and Paul Hunter as the new managing director of North America is an HPE GreenLake channel sales game changer, partners told CRN.

“I think the appointment of George Hope working with Paul Hunter is a huge deal,” said C.R. Howdyshell, president of Advizex Technologies, No. 110 on the CRN 2020 Solution Provider 500, a top HPE GreenLake enterprise partner. “Putting George Hope in that role demonstrates HPE’s significant commitment to the channel. George teaming with (former HPE Worldwide Channel Chief) Paul Hunter amounts to one plus one equals three for HPE’s GreenLake strategy. Those two together are going to drive shoulder to shoulder selling with partners on GreenLake.”

Howdyshell called Hope a 22-year channel veteran who took the top channel job Oct. 1, a “channel execution machine” who knows how to scale a business and Hunter, an 18-year HPE veteran, a proven channel sales advocate who will drive more teaming with partners in the North America sales trenches.

Howdyshell sees GreenLake sales momentum accelerating in HPE’s new fiscal year which begins Nov. 1. Besides the Hope-Hunter combination, HPE partners like Advizex are also benefitting from blockbuster GreenLake deals like the launch of the new customer edition of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud on HPE GreenLake. “That’s going to be a big play for partners like us who have a strong SAP knowledge set,” he said.

Under Howdyshell’s leadership, Advizex has embraced an everything as a service model, embracing emerging technologies including container based solutions, DevOps and artificial intelligence.

The future for Advizex is providing a full HPE GreenLake everything-as-a-service model around offerings like SAP, VMware, containers, hyperconverged in a consumption based model on premise, said Howdyshell. “This is all about having conversations with customers on their business challenges and how we can help solve those,” he said.

The Hope-Hunter sales charge comes with HPE poised to launch a massive GreenLake sales blitz, tripling its channel investment in the new fiscal year to power big on-premises pay-per-use sales growth, said HPE Senior Vice President and GreenLake Cloud Services General Manager Keith White told CRN recently.

The sales blitz includes a sizable investment in new inside GreenLake sales reps worldwide charged with working hand in hand with partners and an increased account coverage model for partners, both aimed at driving new logo wins.

Paul Cohen, vice president of sales for New York-based PKA Technologies Inc., one of HPE‘s top Platinum partners, said he is also “extremely thrilled and excited” about the channel sales impact of the Hope-Hunter combination.

“The two of them together have dozens of years of experience building efficient and profitable channel programs that work for the mutual benefit of partners, HPE and more importantly customers,” Cohen said. “HPE direct sales and partner alignment have been good, but it has the potential to be something really great in 2021 with Paul Hunter and George Hope. We’re very much looking forward to increased collaboration with the HPE field sales teams.”

Cohen, who was a senior HPE sales executive for nearly seven years before joining PKA, said he is looking forward to meeting with Hope and Hunter to share ideas on “how to drive GreenLake sales growth for the betterment of both HPE and the channel.”

Rob Schaeffer, president of Orange, Calif-based CBT, an HPE Platinum partner that has been recognized for its groundbreaking Refinery of the Future solution, said he also sees Hope-Hunter having a big channel sales impact in 2021.

“Have we in the channel ever had a one two punch like Paul and George both coming from channel backgrounds?” asked Schaeffer. “The answer is no. Do we think that is going to be good for us in the channel? Absolutely. They are dear friends and they are dear friends because they have invested in us and with us. They know our businesses. They know our business model. They don’t have to be sold on the value of the channel. It is no longer a channel tax. It is a channel value-add. Those two are uniquely qualified. They both have a deep understanding of what the HPE ecosystem does well when we do it together.”

Schaeffer said he sees the global pandemic and work from home accelerating high value solutions like those provided by CBT for refinery of future with IT (Information Technology)/OT (operational technology) convergence.

“We believe that in 2021 there is going to be a separation of the volume players and the value players,” he said. “The infrastructure business is always going to require speed, efficiency and price from pick, pack and ship big box movers. What we see is a bigger requirement for us in the channel to have areas of specialization that will hit the mark for the customer community. That will be driven by vertical, geography and business outcomes.”

CBT is “extremely bullish” about the potential for 2021 given the new fiscal year go to market planning of Hunter and Hope, said Schaeffer. “The partners are going to be really accretive to the things that HPE is doing,” he said. “If we align and execute correctly this could be not just a one plus one equals two or three, but a one plus one equals five or ten.”