‘7 Minutes’ With HYCU VP of Channels Junelle Swan

**Editor’s Note: “7 Minutes” is a feature where we ask channel executives from startups – or companies that may be new to the Channel Partners audience – a series of quick questions about their businesses and channel programs.**

Enterprise software company HYCU has unveiled an enhanced partner program that aims to reward channel partners for selling its data-protection services.

The changes to the program are designed to work more closely with partners to acquire new customers and drive account penetration with HYCU data protection and IT monitoring for Nutanix. To support the new program, HYCU will work with partners to focus on HYCU’s new and established partner and industry sector sales accounts, and the newly expanded public sector customer base.

In March, Comtrade Software declared operational independence from Comtrade Group with the new name HYCU and embarked on a global expansion.

“Based on feedback from our channel-partner community, we’ve created a simple and financially rewarding channel-partner program that aligns with our partners’ needs and will enable them to be more profitable selling our portfolio,” said Junelle Swan, HYCU’s vice president of channels.

HYCU’s Junelle Swan

Under Swan’s leadership, the HYCU partner program will focus on maintaining and strategically growing its existing global partner community. The program will deliver a new partner experience that will include a new partner portal, co-branded marketing tools and campaign support, along with a simplified deal-registration process.

“Channel partners focused on the IT business needs of small-to-large enterprises are always on the lookout for data protection technology solutions that are secure, simple to manage and work seamlessly within a hyperconverged infrastructure,” said Scott Zahl, Ingram Micro‘s executive director of global partner engagement. “With a growing data-protection portfolio, HYCU is investing in the success of its channel partners and working in conjunction with Ingram Micro to build and accelerate its success within the channel.”

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Swan talks about what her company has to offer partners, and how it tries to stay one step ahead of its competitors.

Channel Partners: Tell us what customers love about your product or service. What’s the secret selling sauce?

Junelle Swan: It’s our fundamental belief there is a better way to create, deploy and manage data protection, especially for Nutanix enterprise cloud customers. That’s why we worked collaboratively with Nutanix to deliver the industry’s first purpose-built backup and recovery software for Nutanix partners and their customers looking for a cost-effective and efficient solution. We feel the simplicity which companies look to from their Nutanix solutions should be enhanced by backup and recovery, not hindered. Things like one-click recovery, seeing into virtual machines (VMs) and being truly application-aware along with being hypervisor-agnostic are additional features we believe should be part of any truly purpose-built data protection solution for hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) users. Since we introduced HYCU for Nutanix about a year ago, the reception has been outstanding, and we’re working with partners in more than 27 countries. When we introduced HYCU for Nutanix, we were one of the first to support the Nutanix AHV.

Since then, we’ve added support for both ESXi along with non-Nutanix workloads. There’s no secret to why we’ve been successful; we’re …