Andrew Fisher (Pure Storage)
Empowering and growing the partner community are top of mind for Pure Storage Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) area vice president of partners Andrew Fisher in 2022.
The storage vendor recently released a new iteration of its partner program, containing Preferred and Elite tiers, which Fisher said provides tangible components for partners.
“At a partner level, we’ve been allowing businesses to engage in their own way and what we’ve done now is given businesses two paths. They can choose to be part of the Portworx journey independently of Pure and similarly, we’re offering partners the ability to cross over into both worlds,” Fisher said.
“It gives them predictability and allows them to expand into the direction they want and doesn't pigeonhole them.”
In the Elite tier, Pure increased financial benefits for partners as of February, which Fisher highlighted as a big shift.
“We haven’t leant towards rebate, discount specific or financial benefits for Elite partners until this year,” he said. “We haven't changed the hurdle to become an Elite partner but we have increased the benefits they will attract.
“We still recognise and reward partners at both tiers, deal registration processes and protect those investments, but we want to reward those prepared to go the extra step.”
Elite partners are also offered particular training tracks for free with Fisher pointing out that it not only invests in the partner business financially, but also in developing staff skills.
“The only way we win business is to rely on and support our partners,” he said. “One of the things I've tried to do in my role is take my 20 years of being in the systems integrator game and translate it into how I build the best possible program.”
Fisher has been with the flash storage vendor for about two-and-a-half years, explaining it runs a selective partner strategy by invite-only rather than a broad brush appeal. He said its partner relationships span across the region and it had a aggressive focus of expanding into India, a new high growth market for the storage supplier.
“Pure’s growing exponentially in the market against our competitors. The partners that we do have, have enjoyed the growth we've experienced together. We're 100 per cent channel only, so they're coming along for that ride as well,” he said.
In September 2020, Pure acquired data services platform operator Portworx, tapping into the Kubernetes cloud community, bringing different types of partners to the fold, Fisher said.
“Different types of people are being attracted to Pure and some of them are even looking at crossing over into some of that infrastructure and legacy partners are crossing over into that Kubernetes cloud space,” Fisher said.
Recently, Pure and Kyndryl struck a new global alliance that sees the IBM managed infrastructure services spin-off become a key delivery partner for the all-flash data storage solutions vendor. The deal expands upon already integrated solutions in the Kyndryl camp and increases the company’s existing Pure Storage skills and capabilities.
