‘Moving the Ball Forward’: Ricky Cooper on Changes for VMware Partners
Channel Futures sat down with the head of VMware’s worldwide channel program to talk trends and changes.
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Following in the footsteps of other cloud providers, VMware has opened its commercial division to partner-led sales.
“It really is the time,” Cooper told Channel Futures.
Now that VMware has gone through the Dell divestiture and introduced new commercial-level products including vSAN+ and vSphere+, debuted last June, executives decided it was time for a change. So, at the beginning of February, they shifted commercial sales to the partner-led model. Some internal sales experts will stay on the commercial team, but a number of them will move “up the stack a little bit,” Cooper said.
That means they’ll be handling corporate, and possible some strategic, sales, both of which comprise larger companies.
“You can only go so far with your own sales team,” Cooper told Channel Futures.
On the next slide, learn more about how VMware will approach a partner-led commercial division.
In terms of which partners will take the lead on VMware’s commercial sales, well, that remains under wraps.
“We’re still going through a lot of the background as to who are those leading partners and who can we rely on in the future,” Cooper said.
Note, too, that partners still will work alongside some internal sales folks.
“We can’t take every piece of resource out of the commercial space,” Cooper said. The main focus, though, is “we’re trusting partners with this motion and supporting them with inside sales.”
Once VMware determines which partners will spearhead the commercial sector, the company will launch mutual campaigns intended to draw more buyers to vSAN+ and vSphere+, mainly.
The gold nugget of all of this? VMware’s effort “is a huge opportunity for our partners … to cross-sell and upsell,” Cooper said.
Next, find out why now represents the best time for VMware to turn over commercial sales to resellers, managed service providers, integrators and other channel partners.
A big reason why now marks the time for VMware partners to lead commercial sales comes as the company rolls out more automation.
As VMware itself continues the shift from legacy products to software as a service and subscriptions, it’s also updating “archaic” processes. Those upgrades will translate into partners spending far less time waiting for quotes and on placing orders, Cooper said. In fact, the wait times should drop significantly.
“Some of our partners are waiting days for the simple things like a quote or order processing,” Cooper said. “Putting this automation in place is going to make a huge difference in that and in customer satisfaction.”
Speaking of customer satisfaction, on the next slide, Cooper discusses client talk of moving data out of the cloud and back to on-premises.
Managing the expenses and logistics of multiple clouds is no easy task. And in 2023, after COVID-19-era over-provisioning and amid inflation, more organizations are questioning whether pure cloud is the right way to go.
Consider that most VMware customers alone have between three and four cloud instances and the cost and complexity grows obvious. That’s when clients start thinking there might be a better way — setting off the “constant merry-go-round” of cloud vs. in-house environments, as Cooper put it.
“A lot of customers are voicing the opinion that this might be easier to do on premises,” Cooper said.
Partners are probably fielding the same input, too, and talking with end users about where it might make sense to return to an on-premises approach. After all, each workload comes with its own requirements.
Either way, cloud or in-house, Cooper said VMware is “positioned extremely well … not only to help manage transparency across clouds … but also transparency on costs.”
Want more of Cooper’s insight into additional cloud trends? Go to the next slide.
Everything at VMware boils down to multicloud, Cooper said. With that in mind, channel partners likely are pitching in more to help customers navigate ever-increasing cloud security and risks, as well as sovereignty.
“Many countries are beginning to look into that, especially in EMEA and Asia Pacific,” Cooper said of cloud sovereignty.
The security issues are nothing new to partners (although many of the threats, of course, are). Sovereignty, meanwhile, is a little less unfamiliar to some. It’s a growing opportunity for both cloud providers and partners. For example, both VMware and Oracle Cloud now offer prominent cloud sovereignty options for regions where extra cloud data protections and boundaries are required. The hyperscalers have some platforms, too, though they have not talked them up as much as their smaller rivals.
Of interest is that Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has emphasized cloud sovereignty as one of the reasons the company is buying VMware.
Next, Cooper shares thoughts on how partners need to think differently about cloud in 2023.
The economy. Need we say more? Probably not, but as a quick review, inflation remains high, layoffs continue and executives have become very sensitive to any overspending. The circumstances force channel partners to evaluate their own businesses, too, and that’s just what they’re doing this year, per Cooper.
“It’s got to be, where is your expertise?” he said. “A lot of partners have tried to be all things to all customers.”
The solution, he said, is to team with fellow partners. He’s seeing successful examples of that coopetition in various geographies, “a real focus of energies and resources on what is going to make the difference for the customer.”
And for any partner who might resort to thoughts of scarcity when considering teaming up with other partners, don’t fear.
“Customer opportunities are huge and there’s enough for everybody,” Cooper said. “The age of the partner, technology, is just booming.”
When you realize that 5G and edge computing have yet “to really explode,” the opportunities are even greater.
The next slide has more.
Don’t be scared “of embracing another partner to fulfill the other pieces you would historically chase after,” Cooper said. “The opportunity in IT has got so big that no longer is it possible to do everything for everybody.”
This gives partners the chance to really specialize where they want to be experts, while getting the best out of their peers, all to the benefit of the end user. Even though macroeconomic pressures make life harder for everyone, Cooper has watched partners face the challenges head on. When it comes to ongoing supply chain shortages, for example, “I’m seeing partners taking different roles.”
“When I was in Asia,” he explained, “one of our prominent partners was very much focused on … working with another hardware company, taking parts from them and offering services … We’re starting to see some transformation in the partners working extremely well together as we’re facing challenges like shortages across the world.”
That’s a win for everyone.
“Everything I’m talking about here is progression, and the biggest winner is the customer,” Cooper said.
And with that top of mind, Cooper talks about upcoming VMware partner program changes. See the next slide.
Remember VMware’s preview last year of big revamps to Partner Connect? Read this article for all the details. VMware has spent the intervening months getting partners ready — moving them into the appropriate tiers, assessing certifications and so on.
Get really ready, because Partner Connect 2.0 goes live in March. VMware has promised Channel Futures another interview to dig into the changes, so expect the resulting article this month. In the meantime, prepare for a swing away from rebates and toward life cycle compensation.
The rebate model “was relatively inflexible in terms of how it spans the customer life cycle,” Cooper said.
In other words, the larger the deal, the bigger the rebate. But that doesn’t work in a SaaS world. Plus, the legacy approach overlooked partners in areas like testing, development and services.
“Historically, we never rewarded them,” Cooper said.
Partner Connect 2.0 addresses that. And Cooper is confident that partners will be happy about the changes. As one example of why, VMware will place partners in one tier or status worldwide, so they earn the same incentives no matter where they sell. This compares to working in different tiers by geography, right now.
“The feeling is that you shouldn’t have to start all over again and be in the bottom tier,” Cooper said, adding, “This program is going to be very well received.”
Remember VMware’s preview last year of big revamps to Partner Connect? Read this article for all the details. VMware has spent the intervening months getting partners ready — moving them into the appropriate tiers, assessing certifications and so on.
Get really ready, because Partner Connect 2.0 goes live in March. VMware has promised Channel Futures another interview to dig into the changes, so expect the resulting article this month. In the meantime, prepare for a swing away from rebates and toward life cycle compensation.
The rebate model “was relatively inflexible in terms of how it spans the customer life cycle,” Cooper said.
In other words, the larger the deal, the bigger the rebate. But that doesn’t work in a SaaS world. Plus, the legacy approach overlooked partners in areas like testing, development and services.
“Historically, we never rewarded them,” Cooper said.
Partner Connect 2.0 addresses that. And Cooper is confident that partners will be happy about the changes. As one example of why, VMware will place partners in one tier or status worldwide, so they earn the same incentives no matter where they sell. This compares to working in different tiers by geography, right now.
“The feeling is that you shouldn’t have to start all over again and be in the bottom tier,” Cooper said, adding, “This program is going to be very well received.”
VMware partners might be feeling a little uncertainty, given all the ups and downs regarding the pending, $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom.
But there’s a lot happening at VMware that could assuage those fears, even though some change will inevitably occur once the transaction closes. (We don’t know what that might be, we’re just saying that any M&A brings with it some level of upheaval in personnel, policies, processes, etc.). Channel Futures sat down with Ricky Cooper, head of the worldwide channel and commercial organization at VMware, on Feb. 24, to get the scoop on what’s been in the works and what’s on the horizon.
Cooper, you’ll recall, assumed the role as head of the VMware partner program last June. Since then, notable changes have continued to come to light. That was part of Cooper’s intent for the job.
Cooper’s Priorities
VMware’s Ricky Cooper
“I came in with a vision of really taking the bull by the horns,” said Cooper, who Channel Futures just last week named to its 2023 Channel Influencers list. “We’re making drastic improvements, investing, spending time listening. … We’ve got so many priorities.”
Those priorities reflect trends in the cloud world and among channel partners. As the technology industry migrates away from legacy, one-time purchases to subscription buying, VMware and its partners have had to keep pace.
That’s not a simple undertaking. VMware, just like many VMware partners, started doing business way back in the day before “cloud” was a thing. The company and its channel experts built their financial foundations on hefty hardware sales. Cloud, however, continues to force the evolution to recurring revenue; Cooper is spearheading partner program changes that align with that shift. As a hint, a new version of Partner Connect is on the way in March. In the slideshow above, Cooper shares “why that’s now very important” for VMware partners, “and why it fits in with the plans of our customers.”
We delve into the nitty-gritty with Cooper and see what he and his team are planning for VMware partners.
As Cooper put it, “hopefully you will see that what we’ve talked about here really justifies how we’re really moving the ball forward.”
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Kelly Teal or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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