NetApp EMEA partner boss places his bets on biggest partner opportunities

Kristian Kerr spoke with CRN about which direction the data storage vendor wants to see partners heading in

Hybrid cloud and AI should be top of mind for NetApp's partners in terms of focus and investment.

That's the message of Kristian Kerr (pictured), VP of EMEA & LATAM partner organisation for NetApp, who spoke with CRN following the revamp of the vendor's channel programme.

The new NetApp Partner Sphere replaces multiple existing NetApp partner programmes, including NetApp Unified, Global Systems Integrator, Service Provider, and the Consultant partner programme.

Kerr gives CRN insight behind the revamp.

"If you look at the partner ecosystem, and the market opportunity, partners have evolved tremendously over the last few years. This is largely driven by the impacts of cloud and the adoption of cloud across our customer base," Kerr explains.

"We felt we needed to modernise our partner programme to support different buying motions, and different types of partners across the ecosystem."

The EMEA partner head, who has been in the role for almost half a decade, listed the different types of NetApp partners, including traditional, infrastructure, cloud-only, cloud-first, as well as partners investing heavily in hybrid multi-cloud.

"And we've got specialist partners that are focused on certain workloads and applications, whether it be AI, analytics, SAP, Oracle.

"So the ecosystem has been expanding and our portfolio has been expanding, therefore we modernised our partner programme so we can support all different partner types no matter where they are on their journey."

Partner investment

Kerr highlights cloud as the biggest growth area for NetApp and its channel partners.

"Hybrid cloud is a huge focus area for us. When I talk about a hybrid cloud, it's infrastructure which is ultimately going to be our all flash systems, as a core component of the infrastructure in the datacentre.

"But it's what we're doing with security, and data protection, in that environment. It's what we're doing to support customers around AI and analytics, which is very much a huge driver for all flash, high performance flash systems.

"Everybody's talking about AI and analytics. For us it's a huge driver of infrastructure. We're seeing some real hunger from the partners that want to capitalise on that market opportunity."

Partner challenges

Outlining the current pain points of NetApp's partners, Kerr says it starts with the customer.

"Customers are looking for freedom of choice. They want to be able to source and consume IT on their terms.

"As a result we are supporting partners as they transition from traditional capex models for opex and subscription.

"The other thing you'll hear from every partner you speak to," he adds, "is skills and availability of talent.

"In terms of the work we're doing in supporting and enabling our partners is around building out competencies and services skills, which is enhancing our best skill set so they can go and support customers."

Message to partner community

Kerr concludes by driving home his message around NetApp's commitment to driving a partner-first culture.

"We want to create an ecosystem to foster collaboration, and this is really about building solutions and differentiation.

"In terms of the market opportunities, which we're going after, where we see significant growth is flash, accelerating cloud adoption, and AI and analytics, but again, it's really about enabling partner-led solutions and services."