Wendy Koh (NetApp)
Hybrid cloud data services and management solutions vendor NetApp has named its top performing partners across the Asia Pacific region, honouring its partners’ efforts in a year filled with challenges.
"We are especially proud to acknowledge our partners' successes in helping our customers navigate the most challenging period we have ever seen," said Wendy Koh, NetApp Asia Pacific channel and alliance vice president. "Our partners are critical to the growth and success of our business across the region."
“Through our Unified Partner Program, we are committed to a long-term investment strategy, so that our strategic partners have profitable growth opportunities to continue doing what they do best – helping customers derive the most value from their data to achieve exceptional business outcomes,” she added.
The winners of the latest NetApp Asia Pacific (APAC) Partner Excellence Awards were revealed during this year's virtual NetApp Partner Summit, with the awards recognising partners that have demonstrated outstanding commitment toward customer success and revenue growth.
According to NetApp, the winning partners have excelled in selling its solutions in categories, such as cloud, the FlexPod platform, artificial intelligence (AI), data protection and backup-as-a-service in the past fiscal year, by building differentiated specialisations in key focus areas of the NetApp Unified Partner Program.
Looking at the broader region, Accenture won the Global Systems Integrator (GSI) Partner of the Year award for ASEAN, recognised for its ability to drive incremental engagements focused on SAP workloads and supporting customers' journey to the cloud.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s PT. Mastersystem Infotama won the award for Service Partner of the Year, which recognises partners that have successfully driven new workloads for new and existing customers, in the FlexPod category.
At the same time, Australia’s Global Storage won the Solution Innovation Partner Award in the Backup-as-a-Service category.
Below is the full list of regional winners:
- Partner of the Year: SysOne Co. (South Korea)
- Distributor of the Year: Zero One Technology Co. (Taiwan)
- Service Partner of the Year: ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) (Japan)
- Growth Partner of the Year: Amidas Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
- New Account Acquisition Partner of the Year: Otsuka Corporation (Japan)
- Cloud Partner of the Year: ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) (Japan)
- Solution Innovation Partner Awards - AI: SoftFusion Co Ltd (South Korea)
- Solution Innovation Partner Awards - FlexPod: PT. Mastersystem Infotama (Indonesia)
- Solution Innovation Partner Awards - Data Protection Alliance: Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic (India)
- Solution Innovation Partner Awards - Backup-as-a-Service: Global Storage (Australia)
- Global Systems Integrator (GSI) Partner of the Year: Accenture (ASEAN)
In May, NetApp said it had updated its Unified Partner Program, claiming it was capitalising on market changes resulting from accelerated digital transformation to the cloud.
Broadly, the provider said that the additions would "provide partners with a more flexible, consistent and simplified experience," flagging that it would prepare partners for the move to a new tier structure next year.
Included within the updates for its upcoming fiscal year are the additions of specialist partners, solutions and Services Certified specialisations, as well as financial incentives.
“We are transforming our Unified Partner Program and evolving its structure to make doing business with NetApp simpler and more profitable for our partners than ever before,” Chris Lamborn, head of global partner GTM and programs at NetApp, said at the time.
“The latest updates are just the start of a multi-phase strategy to incentivise and reward our partners for their solution expertise while delivering greater value to their customers.”
