Winner's Q&A: CRN Sales and Marketing Awards
After its NetApp Insight 2015 event scooped Best Partner Event at the CRN SMAs last month, Bill Lipsin, vice president of global channels at the vendor explains what the win means in this sponsored Q&A
Why did you decide to enter the CRN Sales and Marketing Awards (SMAs)?
CRN is one of the most important and trusted sources of information for the channel community and technology providers. In line with the values driving the Sales and Marketing Awards, NetApp consistently strives to develop strong partnerships resulting in significant business outcomes.
Receiving an award in an SMAs category is significant recognition that NetApp is fully committed to our partner ecosystem.
What did it mean to win the Best Partner Event award on the night considering the tough competition?
Winning the Best Partner Event award at the prestigious CRN SMAs was an honour and a credit to the teamwork and culture fostered by all those who brought NetApp Insight 2015 to life. Our focus is on delivering an inspiring event for our partners and customers, bringing them together with industry experts to provide a platform for innovation and collaboration.
To receive this award - considering the tough competition on the night - among such quality competition proves that the consistent evolution and development of NetApp's partner offerings and engagements is truly valuable.
What difference will winning the award make to NetApp and why?
Collecting the Best Partner Event award highlights NetApp as an industry leader in the channel for creating and hosting events that generate essential engagement between partners and customers and cultivate collaboration, loyalty and innovation. This recognition of excellence shows how much we value partner relationships and their overall success in the marketplace.
Looking ahead, customers and partners that have not yet attended a NetApp Insight event will not want to miss out on what is clearly an industry-leading event.
What aspect of your event were you particularly proud of?
NetApp Insight 2015 was a world-class technical conference that demonstrated the business and technical value of NetApp people, partners, services and solutions. There are many aspects of the event that make us proud. The conference attracted over 3,400 attendees from 62 different countries.
This was a 390 per cent growth since 2008, when the event was established. Quality technical breakout sessions explaining how the business value of NetApp's partners, products and solutions inspired confidence and loyalty was a major source of pride. Despite the scale of the event, we maintained a personal and informal touch with access to NetApp executives for all attendees. And we had fun! The Oktoberfest-themed appreciation party was a highlight for everyone - as was the Brazilian night following day one's keynote.
However, the jewel in the crown for NetApp is the level of collaboration with our partners and their customers throughout the event; helping them to access the full value of NetApp and lead in business transformation and integration of new strategic technologies. This level of engagement and collaboration lies at the heart of the teamwork and relationships we foster as a company.
What was the biggest benefit of the event to your partners?
The top three benefits for partners were:
1) Being the first to know: Understanding how the emerging data management technology trends can benefit their business, while maximising their budget and adapting their strategy to reflect this. As one Bechtle IT consultant said, "Understanding the direction that storage is moving towards was ridiculously exciting." Partners had unprecedented access to our key executives for an inside look at NetApp's high-level business strategy and how that fits into their business going forward.
2) Upgrading skills: Discovering NetApp's newest solutions and learning about innovative joint solutions from expert tutors. Partners could attend technical sessions featuring solutions, case studies and best practices. Plus, they could earn NetApp certifications free of charge. "The technical sessions were a really valuable part of the event. General sessions regarding the vision and future of storage systems were also very valuable," said a Fujitsu sales professional. NetApp's high-quality technical breakout sessions are the glue of the Insight event and one of the key reasons a high percentage of attendees attend. They provide access to key product operations experts who can engage in deep discussions.
3) Connecting with experts: NetApp is relentlessly focused on helping partners to learn about the future of data management and expand on current business and technical knowledge. Here, partners learned how to conquer their customers' challenges and examine profitable new technologies and solutions.
Networking with peers to share knowledge and experiences is always an important part of any event; a Fujitsu sales professional commented, "This conference is not only a transfer of knowledge. More importantly, this conference is about connecting people."
NetApp Insight 2015 hosted over 200 executive one-to-ones during the event, which helped strengthen the bond between NetApp and our partners.
How will you improve on the event for next year and will you defend your title?
NetApp Insight is the biggest data management event in the world and 2015 was no exception as the number of attendees continued to grow. The data we collect from the event surveys is key to our maintaining this growth. NetApp invests heavily in analysing survey data and identifying key areas for improvement. One area identified is to increase the number of partners bringing their customers to the event, to further harness the relationship and team-building experience for which NetApp Insight consistently receives positive feedback.
How important are independently-judged awards events like the SMAs to the channel and why?
Independently-judged awards like the CRN SMAs are hugely important to the channel as they raise visibility of the best available market players, their solutions and services. They also help to build trust and constantly raise industry standards and expectations. This always makes us better.
■ Bill Lipsin is vice president, global channels at NetApp