EMC aims to win VAR commitment with programme overhaul

Storage vendor shakes up Velocity partner programme

EMC has unveiled a variety of new incentives aimed at encouraging resellers to move up a tier on its Velocity channel programme, in a continuation of what it claims is its "channel transformation".

EMC is scrapping the revenue requirement to achieve its Speciality accreditations in one of many moves designed to lure resellers into its higher partner programme tiers.

The vendor will also offer top-tier Signature and second-highest Premier partners the chance to earn additional two per cent and 1.5 per cent rebates respectively on top of their existing Goal Acknowledgement Form (GAF) payments for certain products which sell for less than $100,000 (£63,600).

No revenue targets are in place for resellers in order to receive the new rebates, in another move designed to encourage resellers into the higher-commitment tiers.

To achieve top-tier Signature partner status, resellers now have to achieve three Specialties instead of the standard two, but EMC's EMEA partner boss said this would not cause problems for partners.

The new regime will see the requirement for all resellers to have a services engineer removed for those resellers who do not want one, which in the past was not the case.

He said: "If a Signature partner has two [Specialties] and we say that in order to keep [their] Signature status they have to have three, we have removed the engineer requirement which is now no cost to them, and I have said if you keep your Signature status I give you two per cent [in rebates] – it is not a big deal to decide."

Fosse said that in the long term, EMC plans to remove the requirement for new staff at EMC partners to take the vendor's exams when they already have prior knowledge of the area.

New recruits will be mentored by an existing EMC member of staff for their first installation but will not be required to retake exams when the changes come in.

The channel programme shake-up is part of the vendor's plan to make its partners more productive while offering them a partnership which is more profitable, predictable and simple, EMC said.

Fosse added: "We expect more partners to step up and be Signature and Premier [status] because this is where the money is; that is exactly what the strategy is, this is what we want. In 2011 we recruited a lot [of partners] and we have enough, we want to have more productive partners [now.]"

Fosse said he has no idea how many partners will take up the offers and up their commitment to the vendor, but that the moves have been made based on partner feedback.

He added that in the past, partners have complained that working with EMC was too complicated, and the new developments have been designed to combat this.