NetApp: 'We've become more attractive to cloud-only partners'
NetApp’s VP of the EMEA/LATAM channel has said partners are 'front and centre' of its strategy
NetApp has become 'more attractive' to cloud-only partners, according to its VP of EMEA and LATAM channel who said the company is actively recruiting new partners with cloud capabilities.
Kristian Kerr says its partner ecosystem is all about acquiring "specialist skills and expertise" and that the "majority" of business in the UK and Ireland goes through them.
He said that part of the company's strategy is to upskill its existing partner community and supporting them through building new services, offerings and cloud practices.
Kerr told CRN: "We're working with those partners to build skills, expertise and cloud practices, so they can go and address the huge cloud opportunity that is available here and now.
"We have a set of offerings that they would sell to their traditional buyers in their storage environment. So, it's really about working with our existing partners and to open up new opportunities for them in the cloud space."
Kerr said NetApp's overall strategy is about "extending leadership" in hybrid multi-cloud and accelerating its cloud business.
While he says working with existing partners is important to achieve this, he said the company is becoming "more attractive" to cloud only partners.
He said: "We've got an active recruitment drive on at the moment to identify and onboard new cloud-only partners who are predominately focused on the newer areas of our cloud portfolio, especially cloud operations."
Kerr added that while NetApp's ecosystem is expanding, it is "not about introducing more competition for traditional partners".
"But this is really about attracting, onboarding and expanding the ecosystem around certain workloads," he said.
He went onto say that NetApp looks to acquire "specialist skills and expertise" within the partner ecosystem as it becomes "more attractive".
He added: "The partners are front and centre of our go to market. I think we've got a very loyal and committed partner base that we've been working for a number of years.
"That ecosystem is expanding. So, it's really about acquiring that specialist skills and expertise within the partner ecosystem.
"What we're also seeing is, because of our leadership in cloud versus our competition, we're also becoming a lot more attractive to partners because we have the most complete cloud offerings and story in the deepest relationship with the hyper scalars."