Belinda Jurisic (Veeam)
Veeam is building out a specialised services channel to help customers overcome cloud data management challenges in Asia Pacific, spearheaded by a new round of partner incentives.
Under the banner of ‘Accelerate to Veeam’, the initiative is linked to the Veeam Accredited Service Partner (VASP) program - unveiled in December 2019 - and aims to remove end-user objections when transitioning from legacy systems, with an increased focus on cost savings and access to skills.
With 12 VASP certified providers already on-board - spanning Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, India and Hong Kong markets among others - the vendor is encouraging partners to access ecosystem services expertise to drive customer retention and acquisition strategies.
Following a soft second quarter launch, the incentive scheme is open to the entire regional network of partners, starting at platinum and gold status levels. For partners without deep technical certifications and services capabilities, collaboration with VASP providers is required.
“We do not do direct business and as customer environments become more complex we need partners who are accredited to do that for us,” said Belinda Jurisic, senior director of channels across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) at Veeam. “We also look for partners who work with other partners to help deliver services.
“VASPs help to drive conversations and engagement amongst partners to leverage on resources. If one partner has resources already available, then another partner can leverage these resources as they require.”
Through either showcasing demonstrable skills or partnering with a certified VASP provider to qualify for ‘Accelerate to Veeam', Jurisic - when speaking to Channel Asia remotely from Singapore - said a “straight-pass” of cost savings can be delivered to the customer.
The move was prompted by recent 2020 Veeam Data Protection Trends findings, which highlighted that despite 80 per cent of businesses actively planning to implement a digital transformation agenda, challenges remain with regards to execution. Specifically, key roadblocks include a lack of IT staff skills (44 per cent) and dependency on legacy systems (40 per cent), cited as impacting both end-user time and budget.
“We’re incentivising partners to deliver work at reduced cost for customers,” Jurisic added. “The aim is to essentially remove the cost of migration services in the form of a rebate to either the partner who delivers the capabilities in-house, or through engaging with a VASP partner.
“We’re removing the customer objection of not migrating because of cost or skills. This is based on deal size and we’ve closed four within the space of two weeks through this incentive.
“Partners can work with in-country Veeam leaders to understand their capabilities and sync up with VASP providers if required. We’re encouraging partner-to-partner collaboration and have actually seen the program work in reverse - one large-scale regional system integrator is working on a complex deal and in turn, is progressing towards becoming a VASP.”
The introduction of VASP as a concept represented the second partner program enhancement within the space of six months for the vendor, forming part of ongoing efforts to increase selling and support capabilities via the channel.
Fresh from restricting professional services offerings, the VASP program is designed to offer enhanced business and revenue opportunities, backed by increased sales resources, deeper integration to improve customer time-to-value and access to beta testing for updated functionality.
Also available are Veeam services IP via the partner portal for assistance in building out service portfolios, supported by collaborative and customised offerings such as sizing and scaling tools and services kits.
“Our focus is on giving partners a sales play to easily articulate the business benefits of a Veeam solution,” Jurisic added. “We shouldn’t be talking about Veeam as a product, rather how a partner can place our data protection offering on top of what they are already providing.”
Since the start of 2020, Veeam has reported an annual recurring revenue increase of 21 per cent year-on-year during the first quarter, driven by increased customer demand for subscription services. Specifically, Veeam Universal License posted a 97 per cent increase year-on-year in bookings across more than 375,000 customers.
