HPE Partners ‘Ecstatic’ With Supercharged Sales Incentives in New Partner Ready Vantage

‘HPE is providing substantially more dollars for both selling more and getting new business,’ says Pat O’Dell, the head of HPE’s North America Partner Advisory Council.

Pat O’Dell, the head of HPE’s North America Partner Advisory Council, was “ecstatic” when he saw the “substantial improvements” aimed at driving sales growth in the new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program.

“HPE is providing substantially more dollars for both selling more and getting new business,” said O’Dell, the managing partner at HPE stalwart partner CPP Associates, Clinton, N.J. “Every person who runs a technology company and every good sales rep loves the idea of sell more make more. That is what HPE is doing with this program! It’s not insignificant or marginal. It is substantial! As much as 50 percent more lucrative based upon performance. In my experience I haven’t seen such improvement in a program!”

O’Dell credited HPE’s triple-threat channel team of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Leader Simon Ewington, North America Channel Chief Jeremiah Jenson and Vice President of Worldwide Partner Programs and Operations Jesse Chavez for creating the standout program. “They have increased the incentives for performance and new business, made it more lucrative to sell the complete hybrid cloud, compute and networking portfolio, and they simplified the program,” he said.

O’Dell said he and his sales team are “tremendously” excited about the opportunity ahead. “This is certainly going to incent our sales reps to sell more and to go outside their comfort zone to get new prospective customers,” he said. “The NBO incentives are so high I expect it will propel our sales rep to do new marketing activities to get prospective clients.”

O’Dell (pictured above) said he expects CPP to deliver double-digit sales growth next year based on the strength of the HPE portfolio and the ability to participate in the new HPE Triple Platinum Plus rewarding partners for platinum status in networking, compute and hybrid cloud.

“Given the incentives and the investments we have made as a company we are optimistic about hitting the Triple Platinum targets and taking advantage of all the HPE incentives,” he said. “We expect to easily do double-digit growth in the networking business (with the Juniper data center networking opportunity).”

Bob Panos, president of American Digital, Schaumburg, Ill., No. 329 on the 2025 CRN Solution Provider 500, said he was pleasantly surprised by how potentially lucrative the new program is for both solution provider owners and sales reps. “It’s as rich a program as I have ever seen in three decades of doing this,” he said. “HPE is making sure that the partnership is more financially rewarding for both the sellers and owners.”

Panos credited Jenson with leading the charge in North America to win new business. “I think Jeremiah has brought some new ideas to driving growth,” he said. “It’s great to see a leader in the partner organization that is sales centric. HPE has historically been engineering driven.”

The new Triple Platinum Plus program – which American Digital expects to participate in – is also going to provide a dramatic boost to partners, said Panos.

“With the Juniper acquisition and the portfolio that (HPE CEO) Antonio (Neri) has put together we can now go to a customer and say we can do it all for you! We can give you networking, compute and hybrid cloud with all the management tools and infrastructure you need. Now we have the sales focus to go after new customers with the NBO! The HPE of old would have done one thing at a time. The new HPE is doing a bunch of things at the same time!”

Panos said he expects 10 to 15 percent growth in the HPE business next year with a good portion coming from the data center opportunity with the Juniper Networking portfolio.

In fact, American Digital is looking to add new reps and sales solution architects in the networking business. “The Juniper portfolio is huge for us, now we can compete in data center networking,” he said. “The opportunity for growth is definitely there!”

Panos said he also sees a big opportunity to hire more sales reps to drive virtualization sales growth with HPE VM Essentials. “Customers are screaming for an alternative,” he said. “This gives us an opportunity to have conversations with new customers.”

Panos said HPE “smells blood in the water” and is aggressively going after competitors to gain share. “It’s a good time to be an HPE partner,” he said.

Todd Burkhardt, co-president of Nth Generation, one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, called the new program the best he has ever seen from HPE in three decades of doing business with the company.

Burkhardt said he was surprised by how rich the program is with sales incentives for solution providers and their sales reps. “In today’s day and age manufacturers are reducing the incentives in partner programs for cost savings,” he said. “The way HPE simplified the program and increased incentives across compute, hybrid cloud and networking shows their commitment to to drive solution sales – not product sales. This is about solutions that solve customer problem and HPE has the portfolio to do it.”

Burkhardt said the HPE portfolio has never been stronger thanks to the Juniper acquisition and key acquisitions that have brought new opportunities to partners. “Antonio has done a phenomenal job picking and choosing the right companies to acquire,” he said. “I give him so much credit for the strong portfolio.”

With the new Partner Ready Vantage program the strong HPE portfolio is now backed up a best ever partner program that has Nth Generation sales reps sharply focused on driving HPE sales growth, said Burkhardt. “Our reps were already excited about the HPE portfolio,” he said. “Now to see how HPE is incenting them further keeps them focused on that opportunity. That’s what HPE needed to do and they did it!”