Hewlett Packard Enterprise has introduced a sales-focused equivalent to the Tech Pro Community it launched in March, and added new resources to both the Tech Pro Community and HPE’s Marketing Pro Academy.
The changes were announced in conjunction with the vendor’s 2019 Global Partner Summit event, which is underway in Las Vegas.
Now known as “the Pro series”, the Tech Pro Community, Marketing Pro Academy, and new Sales Pro Community are all designed to offer partners a uniform set of tools, training, resources, and support while also aligning HPE’s partners more closely with its employees by providing everyone the same learning and collaboration opportunities.
“Every professional within our channel partner community plays an integral role in selling the right solution to a customer,” said Paul Hunter, HPE’s global channel chief, in a media statement. “Improving partner growth and the ease of doing business with us through a collaborative community, with access to the right tools and resources via the ‘Pro’ series, demonstrates a new level of commitment and investment to enable our partners.”
According to HPE, the Sales Pro Community will offer a newly simplified and standardized global pricing model, a new pricing tool, and new deal registration processes. A now globally harmonized Partner Demo Program will provide what HPE calls more competitive discounts tailored to individual markets.
The Sales Pro Community also features a consistent partner engagement model backed by a new “interactive space” designed to give partners easy access to HPE salespeople and subject matter experts. Like the Tech Pro Community, it provides access to the same training courses that HPE’s own employees use, including materials from the HPE Partner Ready sales certification process, HPE’s internal sales accreditation program, and other virtual sources. Members who complete those courses will earn certificates and digital badges associated with a new globally standard reward program.
Enhancements to the Tech Pro Community, which seeks to deepen HPE’s pool of solution architect talent, include the introduction of new ASE Hybrid IT Architect and Master ASE Hybrid IT Architect certifications aimed at helping members build and promote their ability to design and deploy hybrid IT infrastructure for key solution workloads aligned with HPE Partner Ready Competencies.
The ASE certification is available now. The Master ASE certification debuts on November 1.
Scheduled to launch the same day is an updated reward and recognition program offering additional benefits, as well as access to content and resources that reflect a partner’s investment in HPE enablement.
Enhancements to the HPE Marketing Pro Academy include the creation of a Digital Marketing Partner Learning Center filled with videos and other resources on digital marketing topics. A new Digital Marketing Partner Accreditation Program, meanwhile, will award badges to architects who complete a pre-defined curriculum of classes in the Partner Learning Center, as well as an HPE Digital Marketing Maturity Assessment. Both offerings are set to roll out on November 1.
According to HPE, over 750 partners have conducted a Digital Marketing Maturity Assessment since its introduction a year ago. Revisions to that resource announced today are designed to provide more personalized recommendations.
Also announced today are changes to the HPE Social Media Center that will aggregate influencers and curate their most relevant content for partners to quickly and easily share via Twitter and LinkedIn. Partners can also now license and share thought leadership content from HPE’s Enterprise.nxt insight and education program at no charge.
HPE unveiled a new and enhanced set of pre-validated, tested, and configured solutions for businesses with up to 500 seats last month. It announced the first line of wireless networking access points for companies with up to 100 employees from its Aruba unit last week.
