Continually tweaking its partner program this past year, IBM has now announced new and expanded capabilities to help its business partners deepen their skills to deliver high-value solutions for clients, while enhancing profitability and opportunities for growth.
New channel investments include senior-level IBM relationship services, market intelligence resources, expanded social media and search tools, and a specialty to help business partners deliver solutions based on IBM System x technology. All of these benefits are delivered at no cost through a simplified IBM PartnerWorld program that features new ways for partners to earn points and speed their member level advancement.
“Just as our partners are making an investment in IBM, we continue to invest in our Business Partners through skills development, streamlined business processes, and new opportunities to collaborate as we work together to create solutions for our clients,” says Rich Hume, general manager, IBM Global Business Partners & Mid-Market. “We continue to deliver on our promise to simplify the way we do business with our Business Partners and help them improve profitability and pursue new opportunities for growth.”
These are the latest moves in IBM’s long standing commitment to training, education and incentives to help Business Partners deliver enhanced value to clients through building both capabilities and solutions expertise. This is particularly important as clients seek greater industry insights and a consultative, solutions-led approach to solving their toughest business challenges.
New skill-building opportunities and benefits
IBM has introduced a range of new and enhanced benefits to help partners build skills, collaborate and grow revenue through IBM PartnerWorld, the company’s global channel program.
New benefits include the following:†††††††††††
- IBM is extending executive relationship coverage as a benefit to a broader community of Premier and Software Value Plus authorized Business Partners.† This benefit is in addition to other established relationships such as the recently expanded Software Lab Advocate program for Software Value Plus authorized Business Partners.† The relationship executive will support the Business Partner at their headquarters with strategic initiatives with IBM.†
- Expanded PartnerWorld Contact Services: Business Partners† can take advantage of additional phone, web and live chat services for support with marketing, sales support, training, technical support and other areas.† This will help Business Partners to more easily identify and put into use the broad array of PartnerWorld resources to gain skills and pursue new opportunities.
- Market Intelligence: Advanced, Premier and Software Value Plus authorized Business Partners will have access to a new suite of no-cost Market Insights research reports on PartnerWorld from both IBM and external vendors. This benefit provides a wide range of prescriptive, easily accessible market intelligence and industry trend data to improve decision making and gain competitive advantage.†
- IBM Business Partner Locator: The IBM Business Partner Locator is a new tool to help clients, prospects and partners more easily identify skilled IBM Business Partners.† The tool replaces previously available locators with a single tool enhanced with new features including the ability to search by capabilities, expertise and Software Value Plus authorized Business Partners. The Locator also features a new interface utilizing Google maps mash up capability and a partner profile comparison solution.
- A new System x Specialty designed to help Business Partners expand their System x sales, technical and solutions skills through a comprehensive set of no-charge education, testing and learning resources. These skills and related certification are proven differentiators within the x86 market in which the System x platform continues to deliver unmatched performance and cost advantages to companies of all sizes.† The System x Specialty prepares partners to pursue high value opportunities and deliver powerful, secure and smart infrastructure solutions to their clients.† Achieving the System x Specialty qualifies partners for a wide range of benefits including enhanced technical support,†participation in targeted sales programs, and industry recognition through the System x Specialty mark.† The new specialty complements the IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty and supports skills development to drive higher revenue levels and margins.
“These enhancements will simplify our path to gaining the kind of skills and specialties that will deliver high value expertise to the client in a joint effort to build a Smarter Planet,” said Daniel Fortin, General Manager of Relevance. “This ultimately helps customers benefit from the in-depth knowledge of a business partner such as ourselves who has committed the time to develop the skills and expertise of our staff. The customer can be assured of our competency in being able to plan, deploy and service IBM technologies and our solutions.”
New, simplified program criteria
IBM is introducing simplified requirements for advancement through the PartnerWorld levels, built around four consistent criteria:† Skills, Revenue, Customer Satisfaction and References. The new criteria recognize more ways to earn points, have fewer rules and minimum requirements and are designed to provide a clear pathway to higher PartnerWorld program levels, increased benefits and specialties.
- Skills: IBM has introduced a new system of weighted skill points.† In the new system, partners earn points for certification and progressively higher points for deeper skills attainment such as advanced and expert technical certifications. These are the same certifications that are currently used towards other attainments, for example, Software Value Plus authorized. Skills points are also awarded for verified Business Partner solutions leveraging any combination of IBM hardware, software, or services.†
- Revenue: IBM has introduced new revenue-based categories and a special midmarket accelerator to earn additional PartnerWorld points.† The midmarket accelerator delivers additional points for revenue earned from midmarket accounts to reward Business Partners leading IBM’s focus in this critically important opportunity.† In addition, total ISV influenced and Application Specific License revenue will now be included in the total revenue calculation.†
- Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction remains a focus area and the customer satisfaction process for PartnerWorld points is unchanged.†
- Client references:†† To further recognize the importance of client success stories in the sales process, IBM will now award PartnerWorld points for verified client references.†
In addition, IBM has simplified the visual design and enhanced the user experience on the main PartnerWorld portal covering sales, marketing and technical support pages. New features include additional live chat support, easier navigation, enhanced search capability and expanded social networking capabilities including industry focused networking groups and a Virtual Summit feature for staging online events with clients.†
PartnerWorld program changes will be deployed in phases through 2010, and will be fully deployed by October. The new points system for PartnerWorld level attainment will be reflected in the PartnerWorld Profiling System beginning in July 2010. For more information about these changes to IBM’s PartnerWorld program, visit: ibm.com/partnerworld/2010.
