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VMware’s Tracy-Ann Palmer On How She Is Putting Partners In The Driver’s Seat
O’Ryan Johnson
‘So we are leveraging the data very strategically to drive a profitability conversation around how do they make money and what are they optimizing versus what are they not optimizing. Don’t leave money on the table,’ Tracy-Ann Palmer, VMware’s vice president of partner experience, programs, investments and compliance, tells CRN.
VMware has tuned the car and given the channel the best engine and pit crew, but it is up to the partner to win the deal.
“The partner is in the driver’s seat,” said Tracy-Ann Palmer, VMware’s vice president of partner experience, programs, investments and compliance, who has overseen a massive transformation of VMware’s channel program that gives partners better business insight and higher profitability.
“So we are leveraging the data very strategically to drive a profitability conversation around how do they make money and what are they optimizing versus what are they not optimizing,” Palmer said. “Don’t leave money on the table.”
[RELATED: 5 Big Partnerships Unveiled At VMware Explore: Nvidia, Oracle, IBM, Dell And Lenovo]
Speaking ahead of this week’s VMware Explore, Palmer walked CRN through VMware’s strategy behind the channel program changes and how it has set partners up to meet the multi-cloud moment, as well as positioned them for the arrival of generative AI.
Partners at the show told CRN they love the changes.
“I always like it when our vendors say I’m not going to be the roadblock. I don’t consider it their responsibility to be the driving force for us. I view it as their job is to get out of the way,” said Michael Bullough, a senior systems engineer with VMware partner CompuNet, based in Meridian, Idaho, but with offices across the U.S. “That’s all they need to do. They’re not here to hold our hand and do our job for us.”
Arne Olsson, sales manager for enterprise at 12-year VMware partner Real Time Services in Sweden, a 200-employee VMware Pinnacle partner, said the new program has been good at shifting his shop into advanced lines of business around app development.
“The new program has been good,” he told CRN at the show. “Now we are driving the Tanzu products hard to build up application development. The last year it has been very good. For us Tanzu is a very big opportunity. VMware is always the enabler. They built parts in everything, so of course if something new comes along, there will be a VMware option too.”
Palmer’s message to partners is the bigger the deal, the bigger the reward.
“A partner today who brings in a multimillion-dollar deal in ACV can make 2.5X more on the deal than they used to make,” Palmer said. “We’re not talking small numbers. We’re talking big numbers.”
Here are five questions from Palmer’s chat with CRN ahead of VMware Explore:
