CHALLENGES

Tier 1 and tier 2 channel partners were expected to perform better in the mid-market space. 

Corporate executive directives required a level of mid-market (commercial segment) growth that was not being achieved by important national level partners.
Mdf funds were passed to some vars as funded head money. Funded heads provided by the partners were not providing focus and growth, and not driving the vendor’s interests.  

Cloud partners needed to better monetize VMware cloud solutions 

In the cloud solutions business, MSPs working through major aggregators were not delivering growth, and much of the accounts were running VMware solutions without tracking and payments.

“Your funded professional is the wind in our back.” – VAR EXECUTIVE

SOLUTION

• In both cases, the core reason for the pain was insufficient partner engagement by the vendor.
• MDF passed directly to the partner would be used to amortize the cost of existing employees by the partner. Said employees were not designed to provide VMware with the focus it required, and were not accountable.
• Gorilla proposed the deployment of a Funded Professional program, whereby Gorilla… Would hire, payroll, deploy and manage such a team of solution specialists. These Funded Professionals are badged VMware and have access to all VMware resources and are typically desk bound resident at the partner location. they work in a team with VARs sales organisation to deliver focus, support and the ability of cross sell and up-sell VMware solutions within the VAR’s data center client.
• The Funded Professionals act as resident brand Ambassadors and move over the vendor’s agenda within the partner.

“Your team always outperforms the rest” – VMware
 

• The Funded Professionals are focused on ROI, developing reference accounts, introducing cross sell products, and helping the partners to prove solution security.
• In the MSP space, Gorilla was able to redress delinquent accounts, working closely with Cloud aggregators and the partners in their ecosystem. Enabling these cloud partners to increase their profitable revenue by correctly tracking and billing virtualised cloud usage.
• The Funded Professionals are tightly managed, with weekly cadence reporting, they have weekly training and motivational refresh calls. They are driven to achieve Vendor targets by their Gorilla Manager, who in this particular case is resident at VMware Headquarters in Palo Alto, CA.
   

RESULTS

• Gorilla Funded Professionals systematically  achieve or exceed their quarterly targets.
• When comparing against partners that do not have a Funded  Professional, a sales delta of up to 60% can be shown.
• The program has driven greater partner loyalty and mindshare.