NetApp announced its intent to launch a new partner program — NetApp Partner Sphere — in fiscal year 2024.
NetApp Partner Sphere, a revised version of NetApp’s Unified Partner Program, delivers a flexible path to advancement and growth for all partner sales motions. This program enables partners to evolve their business in the cloud by consolidating and simplifying multiple programs into one that includes all partner types, business models and routes to market.
The program offers robust training and support to help partners capture cloud market share, brings new validation, recognition and rewards for partners’ investments in competencies and services, and the accelerated growth structure allows partners to contribute transformational value to joint customers.
“With NetApp Partner Sphere, we’re accelerating growth and customer success across our partner ecosystem by extending their reach into the cloud and offering more business opportunities with our portfolio and flexible consumption models,” said Jenni Flinders, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partner Organization at NetApp.
The program offers simplified, flexible, progressive tiering with clear criteria that partners can follow across objective thresholds. The program’s tiers range from Approved, to Preferred, to Prestige, to Prestige Plus – assessing, validating and recognizing partners based on value and competencies, in order to identify the right partners for the right customer opportunities.
Benefits and support will grow as partners ascend tiers, with the partners generating the most impact seeing the broadest and most customized benefits, including solution specific marketing campaigns and enablement, proposal-based market development funds, and preferred value-based incentives.
As part of these changes NetApp will shift away from Specializations to identify partner capabilities and utilize Solution Competencies aligned to key NetApp focus areas – Cloud Solutions, Hybrid Cloud and AI & Analytics. These competencies will be included in the NetApp Partner Sphere program requirements.
