Name: Alex Walsh
Role: Channel and alliances director, Veeam
Spirit animal: Border terrier
Walk-on song: Ain't No Rest For The Wicked (Cage The Elephant)
How would you summarise Veeam's channel philosophy?
Veeam is a 100 per cent channel-focused business, with the partner ecosystem and alliances driving our go-to-market strategy. Being hardware agnostic and software-defined means our partners have the flexibility to choose the right solution for them, and that they are continuously supported by our partner teams along their Modern Data Protection journeys. At Veeam, our channel philosophy relies on the mantra ‘We're better together'.
Tell us about Veeam's partner programme in 100 words or fewer…
We've continued to invest in our partner network over the last few years which means it's evolved considerably, offering partners much more choice in how they can consume Veeam products. To support our partners in meeting the changing needs of customers, and to accelerate their business and strengthen their revenue, Veeam is driving competencies, simplicity and consistency so partners can ensure customer success and meet their business objectives.
Once partners have reached a level of technical competency with Veeam technologies we see that our VAR partners recognise an increase of between 2.8x - 3.3x on new business sales
Veeam has always been customer-focused and we're keen to ensure that customers remain at the centre of everything we do. This comes about partly through the flexibility of the products on offer, with the aim of empowering customers to do so much more with their investments. But it also comes about from the close working relationships we've built with our partners in the UK, their willingness to share what they're hearing from the market with us, what's working well, and where we need to build out what we're doing further.
How many partners do you work with in the UK?
Veeam has over 35,000+ transacting partners globally across over 180 countries.
Are you looking either to expand or reduce that? If so, what partner profile does this apply to?
Veeam's focus is to continue our growth trajectory across all customer segments from the enterprise through to our SMB customers, and the way to do that is with partners. We will continue to invest into our ProPartner Program and our channel eco-system with an increased focus on subscription sales and rebates, which in turn increases our partners' profitability - both for established Veeam partners and for those that are just starting out on their journey with Veeam.
Have you made any major changes to your partner programme recently, or are you about to?
In 2021, we announced an additional multi-million-dollar investment in the EMEA ProPartner Program for our Value-Added Resellers (VARs), in order to further increase support for subscription-based IT and improve the customer value proposition. These enhancements are aimed at rewarding partners that demonstrate core competencies in delivering Cloud Data Management services, and help Veeam strengthen its joint network of VARs, Veeam Cloud & Service Providers (VCSPs) and System Integrators. This enables partners to leverage the growing market adoption of subscription licensing and offer solutions that extend our partners' value proposition to their customers.
To support our partners in meeting the changing needs of customers, especially in the context of changes driven by the pandemic, to help accelerate their businesses and strengthen their revenues, Veeam is driving competencies, simplicity and consistency. Competencies ensure our partners are always proficient experts in the Veeam solutions they deliver. Simplicity makes for easy, effective implementation. Consistency enables simple, reliable, trusted and powerful solutions. These combine so partners can ensure customers' success and meet their own business objectives.
Describe your perfect partner?
At Veeam we have the pleasure of working with a diverse mix of partners that deliver managed services, cloud hosted services or are value added resellers, acting as a trusted advisor to their customers. The common theme that we see in our partners is that the customer remains at the centre of all of their conversations. We know that both Veeam and the partner have the customer's best interests in mind. This makes the experience for both the partner and us a pleasant one. Therefore, for me if a partner has that in mind, that is what I would describe as the "perfect partner"
In which areas would you most like to see your partners invest over the next 12 months?
At Veeam we have been focussed on upskilling our partners in Veeam's technologies through our VMCE (Veeam Certified Engineering) and VMCA (Veeam Certified Architect) courses, which is something that we will continue to do over the next 12 months. Once partners have reached a level of technical competency with Veeam technologies we see that our VAR partners recognise an increase of between 2.8x - 3.3x on new business sales, and that the value of the deals that those partners work on are also 32 per cent higher that of partners without their certifications. We also noted that our VCSP partners saw an annual rental increase of 2x showing that partners who are certified are much more efficient with faster to deploy and faster troubleshooting bringing a huge value in terms of their efficiency to the company ROI and that they maintain a higher level of customer satisfaction.
How do you see vendor channel programmes and channel engagement models evolving over the next few years?
The race for greater flexibility, especially as more businesses move to hybrid working, and demands to deliver technologies 'as a service' all impact on end customer needs.
It means more than ever, partners need to be a guiding light for their customers, helping them navigate these difficulties. Over the next few years, I see channel programmes and channel engagement models moving towards creating harmony.
You may ask, what do I mean by this. Well, vendors need to create a defined strategy that really listens to each customer's needs on various fronts and doesn't just implement what's good for the vendor or "what we have always done". Allowing for agility in channel engagement models given the increase that we have seen of partners working and collaborating more than ever before will help to create harmony within the channel, identify and better address the challenges partners face, build better relationships and lead to business growth and longevity.
What are your priorities for the next 12 months?
There are three key areas of focus that I have over the next 12 months for Veeam and our channel ecosystem.
1. Increase our partner profitability with a focus on shifting towards selling more of our subscription licensing model.
2. More partner-to-partner collaboration with a specific focus on our VCSP partners providing services capabilities to partners that have a gap in that area.
3. Supporting our customers in protecting their critical and strategic workloads from traditional virtual/cloud-based machines through to the protection of their M365, Kubernetes and Salesforce and other SaaS-based workloads.
Is direct-channel conflict ever an issue in your partner ecosystem, and if so how do you mitigate that?
No, as we are a 100 per cent channel friendly organisation and have no direct sales model. We have a channel strategy that sees value in all customers within the channel community and prioritises their needs as essential. For us, creating harmony in the channel is critical - from the technology that's been offered to the services provided.
Name one trait you prize highly in partners, and one you deplore?
When it comes to our partner ecosystem, our partners dedication to educating and upskilling their people is invaluable.
With Veeam's ProPartner Network, partners don't have to invest money in training, only their time. We provide free training to partners and their people, so they're equipped to support customers with every product update and significant move in the industry.
Also, we've designed our ProPartner Network with the knowledge that our partners' employees need time to upskill. A part of our strategy includes rebates, a successful approach that enable partners to reward their sales teams for investing their time in training.
If you could wave a magic wand and change one aspect of your channel performance or strategy overnight, what would it be?
Given the incredible growth that the Veeam UK and Ireland channel team has seen with our partners over the last 18 months it would be difficult for me to want to change too much with a magic wand, I think my "wish" would be for the growth to continue for the next 12 months and for our partners to continue on that journey with us.
What's the most challenging aspect of being a channel leader?
I would say that the most challenging aspect of being a channel leader is to maintain the ability to be agile and flexible in our approach, whilst not diverting too far from the main goal. I have a very experienced and knowledgeable team which is great as there are more than enough good ideas on how we can best support our channel ecosystem, but at the same time our best supporting feature to our partners is to be consistent in our approach. The ethos in the channel team at Veeam is very simple; we do the basics, we do them well and we do them regularly.
Tell us something about yourself most people won't know
A few years ago, my wife paid for me to do a tandem sky-dive and on the first attempt after the initial safety briefing the jump was called off as the plane's wheel had fallen off during landing. I saw this as a very clear sign that I did not belong in the sky and should stay on the ground. However, my wife had other ideas and I was jumping out of the plane the next week with a very entertaining video of my face resembling something like Jim Carrey in The Mask.
What is your spirit animal?
Not sure that I have a spirit animal but I do have two border terriers so I would have to go with that.
What would be your walk-on song, and why?
"Ain't no Rest for the Wicked" - Cage the Elephant. I am a big believer in that if something is worth having, then it is worth working hard for and that to me, is what this song is about.
