Despite the high uptake of Cloud in A/NZ, the channel is still looking at ways to transition to the non-traditional business model.
SAP Australia, Asia Pacific and Japan global partner operations head, Anthony McMahon, is seeing different types of partners and resellers evolving in different ways.
“Some partners are traditional system integrators and consulting firms, so they are really looking at how they can change their business to adopt and provide Cloud solutions,” he said.
Beyond traditional resellers, McMahon has kept an eye on the rise of a new breed of partners he dubs “born in the Cloud.”
“These are companies that have started their whole business model with only Cloud solutions in mind,” he said.
Because they do not have any legacy business model to manage like a normal reseller, McMahon said these types of partners can be a bit more “nimble and agile.”
Evolving the program
With the A/NZ market continually adopting the Cloud, McMahon said the software vendor is enhancing its ParterEdge channel program in tandem.
SAP has historically been viewed as a solutions-based ERP company, but McMahon said this has begun to change through direct acquisition and internally developed products such as HANA.
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“We’ve really moved into covering a much broader area of technology solutions across our platform, whether it be in-memory or traditional databases, analytics, middleware, and mobile solutions,” he said.
With the Cloud, the PartnerEdge program has been adjusted to enable partners to develop solutions for their own IP to run on SAP’s Cloud platform.
Support around how to resell and provide services around SAP’s public Cloud offerings, such as SuccessFactors and Ariba, has also been added.
For application developers, SAP’s channel program now comes with a dedicated PartnerEdge application development program.
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Patrick Budmar covers consumer and enterprise technology breaking news for IDG Communications. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_budmar.
