EMC cosies up to Silver partners with BPP overhaul
Storage vendor confirms plans to dramatically cut revenue thresholds
EMC has talked up the importance of working with its smaller, Silver-level partners as it opens up about the changes it is making to its Business Partner Programme (BPP).
On Friday, CRN revealed that the storage giant is cutting the sales thresholds for its Platinum and Gold partner levels in response to partner feedback. The mammoth annual targets of $65m (£45m) and $15m respectively will now fall to $45m and $8m, EMC confirmed. The sales threshold for Silver partners remains at $1.25m. The changes apply to the UK, France and Germany, with the changes varying in other EMEA regions.
EMC's EMEA channel director Philippe Fosse said the threshold changes are part of a wider initiative to improve the BPP.
He insisted that more than 70 per cent of partners earn more on BPP than they would have with its predecessor Velocity with the same numbers, but said tweaks needed to be made to make life easier for partners, especially smaller ones.
"One of the adjustments is very clear: we continue to develop our business with the bigger partners, but we also expect higher growth with our Silver partners," he said.
He added that although the BPP is viewed as a success within EMC, changes needed to be made based on partner feedback.
With that in mind, EMC has increased the back-end rebates paid to Silver partners from one per cent to 1.5 per cent. Fosse said this was one of the changes which would "make it easier for the partner".
On top of this, the vendor has made it easier for Gold partners to earn back-end rebates by removing one of the "cliff levels" they used to have to achieve before they were paid. "Partners say we want to earn more money quicker," he said. "You can expect that from our partner community".
EMC has also removed the need for partners to include services revenue in their targets because it was "too complicated" and has brought in a new quoting tool which it claims will make it easier for EMC sales reps and partners to work together.
"We know for a fact that this was a very good programme when we implemented it but we have had to wait to get their feedback," he said. "We continue to listen to our partners and so we have made [these] adjustments, which I think are positive for partners. They serve our mantra to make things more simple, predictable and profitable. We haven't changed that."