Think You Know The EMC Partner Program?

In some people's minds, the name EMC can summon up images of large, expensive storage arrays, delivered by a corporate sales force to huge enterprise companies.

So it might surprise many resellers to discover that EMC actually sells to more midrange companies than enterprises; offers popular software versions of its leading products, such as VNX and Data Domain; and sells more through the channel than it does through its direct sales force.

And, with more exciting opportunities coming for our reseller partners in 2016, EMC is continuing to invest in the channel.

But what does that really look like?

An unparalleled product portfolio

A recent channel survey highlighted that the most important attribute for a vendor to offer partners was high-quality products. EMC has invested heavily in ensuring that it has a product portfolio that spans the gamut of storage and protection needs. Since 2005, EMC has invested over $20 billion in R&D and $16billion in acquisitions. This combination has allowed us develop both enterprise and midrange products that are independently benchmarked as market leaders.

Close integration of our storage and data protection portfolios makes it easy for our partners to expand the value of their sales – both in terms of margin and in terms of benefits to their customers. And the ability to offer solutions that are large or small, virtual or physical, software or hardware; means that our partners can respond to any customer brief with an optimal configuration without fear of impacting their margins or partner tier.

Timely two-way communications

How and when vendors communicate with their partners can have a huge impact on whether resellers can hit the ground running with a new product, and ensure that it doesn't interrupt their sales cycles. EMC believes passionately in communicating with our partners and drives Partner Advisory Boards, technical summits and our flagship Global Partner Summit event to ensure that we keep our partners close.

We also encourage partners to get involved early in our beta programs, and to give us feedback throughout the product lifecycle to ensure that there are no surprises and that products are developed with the needs of our channel partners in mind.

Sharing what makes us successful

EMC employs over 33,000 people worldwide including technical experts, marketing experts and those with deep knowledge of vertical, regional and specialist environments. That's information that makes us successful, and it's information that makes our partners successful too.

Our channel enablement teams are specialists in creating marketing campaigns that can be easily rebranded and used by our channel partners. We provide our resellers with complete 'campaign in a box' kits as part of our 'Ready To Go' initiative, so that partners can download materials from the Partner Campaign Playbooks for self-execution, or conduct integrated marketing programs on our free digital marketing platform.

Did we surprise you? Why not check out our website to find out even more that you might not know about EMC's partner program.

Jeff Boudreau is SVP and GM Midrange Solutions, Core Technologies, EMC