HPE’s Partner Ready Vantage Sales Bonanza: What You Need To Know To Make More Money

Here’s a look at how partners can maximize margins and profits with the new $1 billion- plus sales-incentive-packed HPE Partner Ready Vantage program.

HPE Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Leader Simon Ewington, a 30-year HP and HPE channel veteran, calls the new Partner Ready Vantage program that launched on Nov. 1 quite simply the best the company has ever brought to partners. “You can tell when something has hit the mark,” said Ewington.

It’s not just Ewington who is calling the new program the best. HPE partners have also praised the sales-incentive-packed program as an unprecedented opportunity to drive HPE sales growth.

Ewington, for his part, said his team is “very happy, relieved and proud” of the positive feedback from partners. “There is always a nervousness around all the planning, and the thought process paid off and it is going to land as we want it to land,” said Ewington of the lengthy process to hammer out the program.

The heart of the program is a slew of lucrative sales incentives including a New Business Opportunity booster of 10 percent for focus products and 6 percent for standard products for winning new accounts, a hefty 50 percent increase in the rebate incentive in North America for Gold and Platinum partners for hybrid cloud products, and a simplified GreenLake Flex sales incentive of up to 20 percent.

The program also goes a long way toward making it easier for partners to do business with HPE by consolidating 11 different programs into a single unified HPE Partner Ready Vantage program. Among the programs being consolidated under the Partner Ready sales track are Partner Ready, Partner Ready for Networking, Partner Ready for Service Provider and Partner Ready for Services.

“There are substantial changes here, but partners broadly have embraced the program and the opportunity they are going to have for growth, specialization and the opportunities they have to make money,” said Ewington. “Because that is what they are in it for: making money.”

HPE Vice President of Worldwide Partner Programs and Operations Jesse Chavez, who has architected channel programs in the industry for three decades, said the new Partner Ready Vantage has all the “best” of the different programs he has been involved with over the years.

Chavez said the sales budget for Partner Ready Vantage program is more than $1 billion. “That is based on growth,” he said. “We are expecting that this is going to drive behavior from a growth perspective.”

HPE Vice President and North America Channel Chief Jeremiah Jenson, for his part, said the call to action for partners is : “We are doubling down with you. Please double down with us. We have got an aggressive stance in the market. Our sales teams are lined up with partners, whether it is networking, hybrid cloud or compute. There is no better time to be an HPE partner.”

Triple Platinum Plus

HPE’s new Triple Platinum Plus initiative provides significant sales growth incentives for the biggest and best HPE partners achieving Platinum status in networking, hybrid cloud and compute.

Chavez (pictured) said the new Triple Platinum Plus—which will initially target less than 50 partners—is based up upon a joint business plan established with each partner.

The program—which requires Platinum status in networking, hybrid cloud and compute along with new sales and technical certifications—provides robust accelerator growth bonus targets of 10 percent, 20 percent and 30 percent above plan that is measured quarterly with an annual bonus based on the full-year sales, said Chavez.

Ewington said the bespoke growth program represents a “huge opportunity” for HPE’s partners. “It’s an additional program that we haven’t had before to demonstrate that we are continuing to double down on the partner community,” he said.

Jenson, for his part, said he sees the program impacting not only large national partners but also “very committed, capable and sizable regional partners” that will be a large part of the Triple Platinum program.

“They are very committed to growth with us, and we are doubling down with them in this program,” he said. “I would expect North America to have more than its unfair share in this program.”

In fact, Chavez said he expects 80 percent of the partners achieving Triple Platinum status to be in the U.S.

In addition, Chavez said he expects more partners throughout the year to be attracted to the program and move aggressively to try to meet the requirements.

A New Business Opportunity Bonus

HPE’s New Business Opportunity is a new program in North America aimed directly at providing increased compensation for sales reps to step up their game to win new accounts.

The New Business Opportunity booster of 10 percent for focus products and 6 percent on standard products goes on top of any deals approved by deal registration with a discount as a new business opportunity.

The focus products include Alletra Storage MP X10000, HPE Private Cloud AI, HPE Private Cloud Business Edition, Morpheus, VM Essentials, OpsRamp and Zerto.

HPE Compute Ops Management is also eligible for the New Business Opportunity.

The boost is a “clear doubling down” with partners to drive “new logos for HPE and its partners,” said Jenson. “This presents a real opportunity to motivate both sides of the business: the sellers as well as the owners of the business,” he said.

Chavez said the New Business Opportunity has been available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and will be tested in other countries in the first quarter and then be rolled out to the rest of the world.

Paying 10 Percent For Partner Competencies, Recruiting New Specialty Partners

HPE is offering a 10 percent sales incentive for competency in areas like HPE VM Essentials, HPE CloudOps Software Suite (Morpheus Enterprise Software, HPE OpsRamp Software, HPE Zerto Software), and HPE Zerto backup and recovery.

The 10 percent payout for those specialized areas, like the hybrid cloud operations software suite, opens the door for HPE to recruit new software partners and MSPs, said Ewington (pictured).

“Those are typically very specialized partners, and we haven’t had a mechanism for them to feel rewarded, relevant and significant to HPE,” said Ewington. “Now we have got the opportunity to go and build specialized channels and reward those partners for the work they do in particular areas of our portfolio rather than looking at a partner and saying, ‘It’s all about volume. You just need to do a certain volume and hit certain certifications.’ We have got the ability to do both now.”

Chavez, for his part, said HPE has reached out to distributors to help recruit new partners, including Silver, Proximity and Business Partners. “From a distribution standpoint, they are highly excited about being able to recruit business partners who want to specialize,” he said.

In the past, business partners without HPE medallions only had access to deal registration and special pricing. By achieving the competency, they will get that 10 percent compensation rate, said Chavez.

The 10 percent competency payout also includes HPE Private Cloud AI and HPE GreenLake Flex solutions.

For HPE Aruba Networking, the 10 percent competency payout includes HPE Aruba Networking Central (HPE Aruba Networking Cloud Scaled Management with AI for Networking operations); HPE Aruba Networking Data Center (HPE Aruba Networking Data Center Solutions); HPE Aruba Networking SD-WAN (HPE Aruba Networking Smart and Secure connectivity from Edge to Cloud); HPE Aruba Networking Secure Service Edge (HPE Aruba Networking Zero Trust, Secure Web Gateway, Cloud Access Security Broker); HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass (HPE Cyber Resilience Vault Security Solutions) and HPE Aruba Networking Private 5G (HPE Aruba Networking Private 5G Solutions).

A 50 Percent Increase In Rebates For Hybrid Cloud Products For Gold And Platinum Partners

HPE is increasing its Gold and Platinum partner rebates by 50 percent in hybrid cloud in a bid to drive sales growth in its most strategic focus products including Alletra Storage MP X10000.

The hybrid cloud products that are included in the 50 percent rebate hike include Alletra Storage MP X10000, HPE Private Cloud AI, HPE Private Cloud Business Edition, Morpheus, VM Essentials, OpsRamp and Zerto.

“This is a massive growth and earnings opportunity for partners in the traditional medallion hybrid cloud space,” said Jenson.

The new sales incentive is “clear proof” of how HPE is “investing with partners to drive growth,” he said.

“This is a moment for us to double down with the channel and really focus,” Jenson said. “Not only do we have the product and capability to drive customer outcomes, but we are using the channel to go get those new customers to adopt our portfolio to produce those outcomes, and we are paying them for it.”

Sales Accelerator Incentives For Compute And Hybrid Cloud

HPE has a new sales accelerator incentive for compute and hybrid cloud aimed at driving more compute/storage services attach.

Partners that overachieve the average sales thresholds in their geographies will be paid a bonus on a quarterly basis, said Chavez.

“That will be calculated against hardware and services,” said Chavez. “That actually is going to be a big bonus if you are attaching above the average of the country attach rate.”

The sales accelerator will be key to partners tying together storage and compute and moving customers to Gen12 servers, said Chavez.

In the hybrid cloud, the accelerator will be focused on HPE’s focus products including HPE Private Cloud AI, Alletra Storage MP X10000, Private Cloud Business Edition and Zerto.

HPE tech care services incentives have also increased to 3.5 percent for all medallion levels for compute.

A Simplified Potential 20 Percent HPE GreenLake Flex Opportunity

HPE GreenLake Flex—the popular HPE pay-per-use hybrid cloud—is moving to a 10 percent rebate incentive with an additional New Business Opportunity of 10 percent.

“The opportunity for partners is in the enterprise and commercial so most of those will be new business opportunities,” said Chavez.

The new program is simplified from the prior GreenLake Flex program, which started with a 9 percent rebate incentive with additional incentives for doing more GreenLake deals.

“Last year it was very complicated and convoluted, this year in our constant journey to simplify we made it a clear opportunity to gain up to 20 percent for GreenLake Flex,” said Jenson. “Not only is that larger than last year, but it is simpler than last year.”

A Blockbuster Juniper And Aruba AI Networking Sales Opportunity

HPE partners are moving quickly to capture the AI networking opportunity with both the Juniper Networks and HPE Aruba networking portfolios.

Jenson, for his part, said HPE’s $13.4 billion acquisition of Juniper in July and the move to integrate the two networking portfolios provides “incremental” opportunity for partners.

Under the HPE medallion program, Aruba and Juniper partners gain equal status in the respective programs, said Jenson, with 100 percent of top partners from each of the programs expected to participate to drive networking sales growth with the full networking portfolio.

HPE plans to bring together the Juniper and Aruba programs in Fiscal Year 2027.

Chavez said the gating factor in bringing the programs together is integrating the two systems including portals, deal registration and sales systems.

“We will run two separate programs, Partner Ready Vantage for the HPE Aruba portfolio and the Juniper Partner Advantage program for the Juniper portfolio [until the next fiscal year],” said Chavez.

There will be some Juniper products brought into the HPE price list throughout the year.