One of the highlights of my week was going out to Barcelona to spend some quality time with EMC's EMEA partners -- a great bunch of people, simply because their perspective is usually very different than, say, the North American crowd.
Rather than do my usual powerpoint keynote, I instead moderated a panel made up of representatives from VMware, Cisco, RSA as well as VCE.
The topic? Cloud, of course.
For starters, the notion of "EMEA" (Europe, Middle East and Africa) is nothing more than an organizational construct that we IT vendors use.
The diversity of the partner audience is fascinating -- from large-scale partners in the more established western European countries, to partners working in considerably more challenging parts of the world. You can't assume anything.
Our dialog with all of our partners is typically very honest and transparent. Here's where we see the new opportunities, how can we help you get there? Here's our program, what needs to be better?
Why? We think of them as true business partners, and not just a distribution channel. We ideally see them as independent businesses that demand we invest our time and resources behind their success.
And we can always do better ...
The Buzz
We always end up talking about a lot of topics -- formally and informally.
For example, there was plenty of chatter around new segment opportunities we were creating (VNXe, Greenplum and Isilon as popular examples). Good feedback on some of last year's programs that were producing great results (DataDomain comes to mind!).
Lots of commentary (praise and constructive suggestions) around our revised Velocity program, and some specifics around products.
Plenty of juicy competitive gossip as well :)
However, the real interest for many was -- not surprisingly -- the "cloud opportunity".
Partners And The Cloud Opportunity
Many could see the opportunity -- if not right now, then soon for sure -- but really wanted to know what to do about it. So that's where I steered the panel discussion.
It was a long-ish panel -- it ran for about 90 minutes, but -- despite the length -- I think most folks could have gone even longer :)
Perhaps the most valuable part of the panel discussion was when we spoke honestly and frankly about where we saw partners being challenged. Some of these challenges were things that V, C and E -- either collectively or individually -- could help with.
Others were challenges that partners pretty much had to address for themselves. I thought it'd be interesting to share some of the key thoughts for those that weren't there :)
Challenge #1 -- Cloud Is A Business Proposition, And Not A Technology Proposition
We, as technology vendors, tend to fall into the "comfortable discussion" trap. Most of our interaction is with technology specialists; hence, cloud must be a proposition made by technologists for technologists.
I firmly believe that's less-than-ideal. Cloud is essentially a business proposition, delivered in business terms to business people.
Do you want to fundamentally change the way you deliver IT services? It has less to do with specific technologies, and more to do with leadership and organizational change.
So, if you're a technology partner, are you ready and able to have a transformational discussion with your prospects? And -- sorry to say -- the person you usually meet with who is in charge of storage or servers or networks or virtualization (or whatever!) typically isn't the ideal starting point for that kind of engagement.
I've done a bit of training for partners around what I call the "cloud engagement model". It looks very different than a traditional technology-oriented engagement model -- as it should.
Challenge #2 -- Organizing For Success
It's pretty much well understood that traditional IT infrastructure organizations and associated skill sets can be a significant obstacle to moving to a private cloud model.
The familiar server, storage, network, virtualization, etc. functional groups (or silos) aren't organized for success. That's the problem -- and the opportunity.
Well, in many partner organizations, the same is true. The classic partner organization has the exact same silos that their customers typically have. Would you expect anything different?
For EMC (and VCE) to be successful, we had to invest in various pre-sales skills that (a) spanned the traditional technology silos, and (b) could target the meaningful discussion that had to occur a few levels above the traditional technology specialties.
We've noticed that a few of our partners have started to do the same, and are starting to see much greater success.
Challenge #3 -- Be Prepared To Invest In Consultants
Just about every serious cloud engagement has serious and meaningful consultative content -- everything from "making the case" on behalf of IT for the business, to very detailed organizational change management plans.
As one example, our recent "Cloud Advisory Services" (including the very popular Cloud Diagnostic) are turning out to be enormously popular at the front-end of many customer and partner engagements.
Just to be clear, these people are not technology consultants, nor are they industry consultants. Instead, they are deeply familar with the inner and outer workings of IT organizations.
And, like most things in life, the very best ones aren't cheap :)
Challenge #4 -- Be Prepared To Offer Consumption Options
Let's face it, not everyone wants to build a private cloud.
A surprising number of IT leaders assess the situations, and conclude that their organization would be better off consuming IT-as-a-service externally vs. the substantial investment required for internal IT transformation.
Still others might want to use a mix of external and internal services, especially at the outset when startup costs and efforts might be too high.
Either way, successful partners will be either provide SP-like IT-as-a-service options, or have aligned themselves tightly with service providers who do this as a specialty. Indeed, the partners I know who've established this capability are doing exceptionally well.
Conversely, just being able to address the internal IT requirements for cloud-like environments significantly limits your flexibility to address real-world requirements.
Challenge #5 -- Be Committed To Change
One of my favorite sayings is that "cloud changes everything".
It certainly changes how a customer might approach delivering the next generation of IT services. It certainly has changed how vendors (such as VMware, EMC and Cisco) approach the opportunity. And it follows by implication that cloud also significantly changes partners that are the essential link between technology vendors and clients.
The Big Decision
Our mutual customers run a business. The decision to move to a cloud-like service delivery model is a business decision, and not a traditional technology or vendor decision.
Simlarly, our partners run a business -- every decision is essentially a business decision.
There's no denying that getting proficient at cloud is going to take more investment than updating a few powerpoints here and there. To be really good at it is going to require a substantial pattern of investment over time.
I don't think there are many "quick hits" to be had.
I think we at EMC have recognized not only the opportunity at hand, but the magnitude of investment required for sustained proficiency. Frankly speaking, it might not be for everyone. And besides, there's *plenty* of opportunity out there to sell storage, backup, security, virtualization, management, etc.
But if you're an EMC and/or VCE partner, and you decide to go down this path, we stand ready to help you any way we can.
Thanks to all of you who I was able to meet in Barcelona. I look forward to seeing you again before long!
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