**Editor’s Note: Click here for a list of January’s important channel-program changes you should know.**

Oracle has unveiled its new PartnerNetwork Cloud Program aimed at helping partners accelerate the growth of their Oracle Cloud business through technical and go-to-market support.

Partners will be able to showcase their Oracle Cloud expertise, vertical-market offerings and success with customers through new tiers of recognition and progressive benefits. Qualifications will be based on cloud performance metrics including the partners’ cloud specializations, applications on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, cloud fixed-scope offerings, successful go-live cloud implementations, cloud success stories, cloud-focused resources and expertise, according to the company.

The program includes four tiers: Cloud Standard, Cloud Select, Cloud Premier and Cloud Elite. Cloud Standard helps partners begin to differentiate themselves in the market, while Cloud Select is for partners that have achieved a cloud specialization and/or are developing and selling Oracle Cloud technologies or services with proven success.

Cloud Premier reflects partners that have transformed their business to focus specifically on driving their Oracle Cloud offerings with successful and repeatable customer use cases. Benefits include enablement, go-to-market and engagement resources within their regions.

Cloud Elite partners have demonstrated full investment in the “depth and breadth of Oracle Cloud solutions,” and dedication to delivering them to joint customers, Oracle said. They will be priority go-to-market partners that will benefit from the “highest engagement and commitment from Oracle for joint-focused cloud business growth,” it said.{ad}

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Penny Philpot, Oracle’s group vice president of worldwide alliances and channels, talks about the new cloud program and the opportunities it presents for numerous types of partners.

Channel Partners: There is a lot of interest in Oracle. Can you introduce yourself and talk about why they should come and talk to you?

Penny Philpot: We are very much looking for the program to attract new types of organizations. Especially with some of the smaller partners who Oracle wasn’t able to meet their needs. This program very much is doing that today, especially with the Cloud Register and with our cloud program, they’re very much reaching to that wider audience. So if an organization is selling Office 365 and has a need for Oracle’s entry-point solution, then yes, our program is developed to accommodate and develop, and reach out to work with those companies.

CP: Are you working with any of the distributors, the Ingram Micros or Synnexes?

PP: Yes, we do. … we work with those firms. These organizations very much act as an extension to what we’re doing … and we rely on them to introduce us to new partners and organizations, and vice versa. Getting the word out and getting them in the program, but most of all supporting those smaller partners; we don’t have the bandwidth to cover and …

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… manage ourselves personally and make sure those partners have all they need.

Channel Partners: Can you talk about what you have on the horizon for your partner programs?

PP: The main thing is the cloud program sits on top of our existing programs, and that’s a key thing because today we have over 25,000 partners in our program, and between them they’ve been getting themselves specialized in our products in all categories. And today we have over 53,500 individual specializations, and the whole point of this is to build on all that our partners have done. And within that, there’s something like 300,000 specialist individuals. So it’s taking all of that business and building on it, and then extracting partners in a particular area of focus with the cloud. In cloud, we need to a) be able to support our partners in that journey with us, and b) identify those partners that are able to help us in the cloud business as well.

A lot of the tiering is not only about getting benefits to partners and adding incremental growth and revenue, but also to understand those players within our ecosystem who are better aligned in cloud to certain things depending on the customer needs.

CP: Do you see any particular strength in particular verticals?

PP: Some of the specializations are industry specializations as opposed to product specializations. We’re very much trying to take this to all the major food groups. We’re very strong in public sector; we’re very strong in retail. I can’t think of an industry which is more than the other.

Channel Partners: You’re involved with globalization and also the women’s leadership group, Women in the Channel. How do you see the growth of women in IT and tech, and in general?

PP: It’s an interesting one. It does vary by location. I have a worldwide job. I’m based in the United Kingdom. Bottom line, when you find a woman leader in IT, they are very strong, very firm, very assertive, inspiring people. There is also a big push about making sure, especially within our company, that we’re picking the right people for the job regardless. If you’re trying to solve a problem and you’ve got a bunch of middle-aged [men], you get one answer. If you have a group of women, men, young, old, experienced, all of that diversity of everything, you get that increased number of ideas.

I’m very lucky. My management team consists of people that are based in and are local to Japan, China, India, Romania, the United Kingdom, France, America, Argentina. So when I get them all on a call and say “hey, how about this?” I have people with a can-do attitude, so the ideas absolutely flow. And I’m talking women and men and everything else. I’m all about diversity.

But as long as companies are picking the right people for the right jobs regardless of what they look like and how they are, that’s the key thing. If more women want to go into product development or IT-related jobs at the time of entering in their career, they obviously will also be a higher number. I think it’s also a case of what the influx into our industry is as well as what we do with them when they’re here.