Pure Storage goes harder on service-led in partner programme as subscription revenues climb in Q4

EMEA VP Geoff Greenlaw talks to CRN about the vendor’s latest evolution of its partner programme

Pure Storage today announced a double whammy with new partner programme updates as the vendor shifts to a service-led strategy alongside financial results showcasing the performance of its subscriptions business.

First, the channel-impacting news as the "only storage vendor to deliver subscriptions entirely through the channel" enhances its global partner programme to include:

• A new pricing model framework
• Updates to its existing quote configuration
• Improved SalesForce reporting experience
• And a new partner intelligence dashboard.

EMEA and LATAM VP Geoff Greenlaw tells CRN the updates are an evolution of Pure's "four p" strategy based on partnerships, the programme, people and process.

"This announcement plays on the programme and process pillars - how do we drive profitable growth in a predictable way, and ease of doing business with Pure."

Greenlaw states the refreshed programme is "richer" than its former version, with "more rebates and dollars available" for partners.

"The updates are designed to enhance what I class as the partner experience of working with Pure," he says.

"I continue on this journey of partner autonomy, self sufficiency, and independence in the channel. That doesn't mean we're going to let our partners run riot across the customer ecosystem.

"We will still be there to support and help them but what we're doing is empowering them with more tools, more capability, more automation, more empowerment, to help them accelerate growth in a far faster way.

"Ultimately, the goal of this is to help them drive more profitable growth in a predictable way."

Direct partner feedback

Greenlaw explains the programme changes were driven by "direct partner feedback" predominantly gathered from the vendor's partner advisory councils which sits around 20 executives from Pure's top 20 partners.

"They gave us a wish list of what they would like to see. And I have to say we've gone away and taken action on all that feedback, to the point where I think we've ticked pretty much every box they were asking for at that point in time.

"But what does it mean for our partners? Self sufficiency was one of the key elements of the feedback."

He explains how historically, Pure touched every part of the sales cycle.

"What we've done is given our own internal tools, releasing them to the channel so that they can build their own quotes and do their own pricing, giving them a pricing framework to work within before they need to come to Pure for us to engage with them."

He adds the new programme also empowers partners with more tools for tracking the existing customer install base.

"Leveraging our Pure1 technology, it's giving them access to that for their own specific customers so that they can then manage things like upgrades, upsell, cross sell opportunities, and of course renewals.

"On the process pillar, we're going to be launching EDI integration, which means we can automate the whole order management, order placement of taking a quotation through to booking an order without any manual intervention.

"This means less room for manual error."

Subscriptions shift

Pure Storage will be rewarding OpEx transactions through its Evergreen//One platform "very richly" with the new programme as the industry continues to pivot from CapEx to OpEx.

"There's a lot more rewards around Evergreen//One and subscription.

"That's a trend we're seeing in the industry. Therefore, we need to reward that much more greatly, especially within the direction of travel for Pure move to a subscription led company with more than half of our revenues coming from annual recurring revenue.

"I feel the feedback we took was around back end rebates. So we've opened up a new back end rebate opportunity for elite partners specifically, which did not exist before."

Pure Storage Q4 and fiscal FY24 results

Alongside the makeover of its global partner programme, Pure also released its financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 ended February 4, 2024.

Q4 revenues dipped three per cent year-over-year to $789.8m.

Subscription services revenues jumped 24 per cent to $328.9m during the quarter.

While subscription annual recurring revenue also climbed 25 per cent to $1.4bn.

Meanwhile, full-year revenues grew three per cent year-over-year to earn $2.8bn.

Subscription services revenue for the full-year also enjoyed healthy growth of 26 per cent to $1.2bn.

"We're working towards a subscription annual recurring revenue stream and the volume of subscription growth is promising," says Greenlaw.

"When I talk about subscription, this move to storage as-a-service is really gaining traction in our partner ecosystem.

"Our Evergreen technology is really driving demand in our ecosystem because customers want to move from CapEx to OpEx, they do not want to have to pay for storage sitting dormant in their datacentre.

"They want to pay for what they use and Evergreen allows them to do that."