Dolman talks up Splunk's new partner-first model

Ex-VMware man sets out stall at new employer

Former VMware man Ed Dolman has outlined his plans to boost his new employer Splunk's channel strategy as the company pursues a new, partner-first model.

Dolman spent five years at VMware, mainly leading its channel, before taking charge of its enterprise sales unit. He left in the summer and joined Splunk at the start of October.

Since then, Dolman has been working on plans to boost Splunk's profile in the channel.

Splunk is a 10-year-old US-headquartered big data company which aims to make users' data "accessible, useable and valuable". It went public in 2012.

The company does not break out how much of its business is done direct and through the channel, but Dolman told CRN that in EMEA, the channel is a "significant" portion of its business which is "growing rapidly". The company recently adopted a "partner-first" model, which coincided with Dolman's appointment.

He said although he had a great time at VMware, he enjoys the challenge of building up channel strategies for smaller companies that are new to a partner model.

"We are now partner-first," he said. "One of the key priorities – and why I joined – is to accelerate the building of a world-class partner ecosystem. We're going to grow to $650m (£429m) this year to $850m next year. We cannot do that without a world-class ecosystem to give us that scale; that operational efficiency and excellence; and that reach into new markets that we cannot cover today as a sales force."

Splunk has a number of high-profile customers including John Lewis, Tesco and Vodafone. Dolman said these wins will help him boost awareness of the company in the channel, which is one of his immediate aims.

"We will definitely be doing a lot of work around awareness," he said. "We're a very fast-growing partner business and we are adding partner resource very quickly. We started with a relatively small team in EMEA but even in the 10 weeks I have been here, that team has tripled.

"We also launched 12 weeks ago with Arrow in EMEA – we have a two-tier strategy. We are leveraging the power of distribution to give us that reach into the wider channel and to help us recruit new partners, but also to help manage that messaging and marketing."