Eaton’s Curtiz Gangi On Power Management As A Service, ARC Victory

Eaton U.S. channel chief Curtiz Gangi recently spoke with CRN about the biggest opportunity in front of the Eaton’s partners, helping them through economic turbulence and the company’s win in CRN’s Annual Report Card awards.

Eaton Vice President of U.S. Channels for Data Center Sales Curtiz Gangi recently spoke with CRN about how the company is helping its channel through the economic turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic, the opportunity for partners in power management as a service and the company’s win in the CRN 2020 Annual Report Card awards. What follows is an edited excerpt of the conversation.

Eaton has done a lot over the last few months to help its partners through the pandemic. What do you think has had the most impact?

So first of all, it’s us being present and communicating what’s going on at Eaton, what we’re seeing in the markets and how we can help partners take advantage of the available market that’s out there today. The next thing that I think channel partners are very well aware of—I know CRN has done a number of articles on this—but we have extended our software at no charge to the partners through November 1st, and I think that’s a big deal. We’ve got a lot of partners that are taking advantage of it. Here’s why: the power infrastructure typically is managed while there are on-prem resources to manage it. But now that folks aren’t going in the office and that infrastructure still needs to be up and running, our software can remotely manage—[and you can also] remotely install it—into the infrastructure. So between us being present, being collaborative, being communicative, it’s also that program around the software that’s helping tremendously.

What have you been hearing from partners as far as how they have been helping their customers get through the pandemic?

I think it’s two things. Work from home is a huge shift, as we all know, and [they’re] trying to get that workforce back up and running and making sure that the infrastructure is secure. The partners, I think the biggest thing that they’ve been lending to the end customers is that consultative approach: Here’s the best practice. Here’s how to easily do this. Here’s how to implement [Microsoft] SharePoint. Here’s how to secure your infrastructure. There isn’t a lot of on-prem experience, right? And so for us, our partners have the capabilities to present our software tools that can be used remotely to manage the infrastructure, and that’s really what that comes down to is consult with the customer, make sure they’ve got what they need and make sure they can get their workforce up and running.

As you look out over the next year, what do you feel is the biggest opportunity sitting in front of the Eaton channel?

It is definitely hybrid cloud, because at the end of the day there is a lot of infrastructure that will be upgraded on-prem to handle that dynamic, and Eaton has already had launched blueprints and validations that can help partners easily integrate not only the power hardware but the software tools as well, and that becomes more of that managed services play for the partner. So that’s the on-prem. We’ve also had great success in our orchestration tools around cloud orchestration and how we can manage that infrastructure and simply initiate the movement of data to the cloud and back, and I think those are two really strong capabilities that the partners need to understand and deliver to the market.

You got some good news this week as solution providers named Eaton as the No. 1 provider in the Power Protection and Management category in CRN’s Annual Report Card Awards. What do you feel like was the driving factor there?

Thank you so much. It’s a great honor quite as that recognition is fantastic, so we really appreciate it.

I think it’s the evolution that we’ve had in the channel, the trust that we’ve been able to garnish from a reseller base based on the fact that we are providing relevant technologies, relevant solutions, our validations with our technology alliance partners, like Nutanix and HP and Cisco and Dell Technologies, so it to me, it’s that trust we’ve been able to build over time.

When you look back over the last year at either changes you made to the channel strategy or the product portfolio, what do you think made the biggest impact?

[There are] three really key factors of this: No. 1, we have upgraded some of our ‘more historical products,’ let’s put it that way, to be more relevant in the infrastructure needs of today, along with high-density rack PDUs and things of that nature. No. 2 is the fact that we have added two more software platforms that allow our partners to engage a wider customer base and an install base then they traditionally had been able to. And the third piece is we are now after 10 years of being in the channel—we’re still fairly young—we have a good base of partners that have strong capabilities along with a good install base of customers, and that’s allowed us now to finally deliver a more encompassing service portfolio to the market. And Jennifer, I know you’re going to ask this, as you guys always do, so I’m just going to preemptively strike you on it. What is that value to the partner? It’s about a compounded 30 growth on an existing customer base for Eaton, and that’s a big deal. Traditionally we would round out the solution on hardware and the software but now that we’re adding recurring revenue and services, it’s a really big deal.

You absolutely read my mind on that. So what about looking ahead, what should Eaton partners be on the lookout for?

From us, there’s no doubt that the way we feel about the next five years is that partners need to be able to have the capabilities to deliver power management as a service. It is time now that we have a software platform that is on a recurring renewal basis, monthly subscription or yearly subscription, and for the partner to be able to incorporate that into their managed services offering to their customers is going to be key for their success short-term and long-term in this market, and we’re going to help enable them. There is no doubt about it. There are specific competencies and capabilities that we have as an organization that we want to impart on the channel partners, and this is the perfect time for us to start doing that.

The second piece is, as everybody knows, software and services lead to business value. I think we all know what that is. So transforming from a capital expense to an operational expense and then moving into the customer success approach and the business value that the end customer is receiving from moving into power management as a managed service is going to be key for everybody moving forward. So keep on the lookout for what Eaton’s going to do around enablement and business value.

What is your overall message to the Eaton channel?

After hearing this fantastic news [of our ARC win,] it’s obviously ‘thank you.’ It has taken us 10 years to earn your trust. It’s taken us 10 years to evolve our channel and our partner organization to be relevant and stay relevant in the industry and be transformative, and you guys are the ones that have validated our position this market, and I can’t be thankful enough for that. The second thing I would like to tell the channel partners is that without The Channel Company, [the parent company of CRN], Eaton wouldn’t be able to deliver our messaging and our capabilities into the market. … So thanks to The Channel Company.