Andrew Gill

Name: Andrew Gill

Role: Director UK and Ireland, channel sales and ecosystems, Nutanix

Spirit animal: Tiger

How would you summarise your company's channel philosophy?

Simplicity is at the centre of all that we do. Our philosophy for the channel is no different. Elevate, our global partner programme, delivers that vision of simplicity to the entire partner ecosystem.

Tell us about your company's partner programme in 100 words or fewer…

Elevate unites Nutanix's global partner ecosystem across all sales motions under one integrated architecture to deliver simplification, profitability and an accelerated multi-product, multi-cloud roadmap. Elevate simplifies engagement for Nutanix's entire partner ecosystem through a consistent set of tools, resources and marketing platforms. Therefore, Elevate makes it easier for partners to follow their path to success through leveraging our ‘channel only' route to market. It's an exceptional opportunity to deliver a highly profitable business across the portfolio and throughout the customer lifecycle.

How many partners do you work with in the UK?

Nutanix has a thriving partner ecosystem with 100s of active partner and alliance relationships.

Are you looking either to expand or reduce that? If so, what partner profile does this apply to?

We have worked hard to cultivate excellent relationships with our partner network. We believe that no partner should be left behind and we are committed to delivering a platform that enables all partners to build not only traditional deployment services, but also to ramp up new practice areas quickly, maximising partner profitability.

Have you made any major changes to your partner programme recently, or are you about to?

We have launched a new Elevate Distributor programme. Enabling partners to quickly identify distributors who have the skill sets and capabilities to drive growth in their businesses, the new programme also provides benefits and resources to help support distributor operational efficiency, sales velocity and profitability. Therefore, our partner programme continually evolves to meet the ever-changing needs of the ecosystem.

We continuously look to further simplify and innovate our partner program and engagement to ensure we optimise the value we deliver our customers and channel throughout the product lifecycle. This will involve increasing industry alignment and expertise to drive value, reach and incremental opportunity throughout solution lifecycles.

Describe your perfect partner

A genuine partnership with common values and essentially a shared ambition to be disruptive, valued and successful in the marketplace with Nutanix

In which areas would you most like to see your partners invest over the next 12 months?

It would be remiss to ignore the extent by which the next generation of data centre architectures is set to be informed by AI/ML and low-code/no-code approaches to application development.

But let's not forget the importance of our partners embracing the full HCI to hybrid multi-cloud opportunity and how our shared integrated offerings create compelling solutions with significant economic and environmental benefits

How do you see vendor channel programmes and channel engagement models evolving over the next few years?

Channel engagement models will always continue to evolve. As such, we will continually look at how we optimise our engagement model. This is to ensure that the partner community is fully enabled, aligned and well rewarded as we optimise our product portfolio and engagement throughout each successful customer journey.

What are your priorities for the next 12 months?

High on our agenda is automation. We are acutely aware that this is an area of focus for our partners as they look to reduce time spent on operational IT and focus instead on solution selling. We have invested heavily in our back-office automation abilities in addition to large scale platform integrations at our major distributors. All of this has been done with one goal in mind - to speed up the transaction process for our partners by up to 60 per cent.

We are acutely aware that [automation] is an area of focus for our partners as they look to reduce time spent on operational IT and focus instead on solution selling

Do you feel your company is doing enough to cater for non-resale partners, including those that sell technology as a managed service, ISVs or agents?

Nutanix strategically engages with all partner types across all sales motions. This includes recently updating our service provider programme. The Nutanix business is based on a strong ecosystem of alliances, ISVs, OEM partners, service providers, systems integrators, distributors and of course re-sellers.

Given the speed of change, global headwinds and market dynamics, no vendor is doing enough. Never before has it been more important to have a trusted and consistent ecosystem programme while remaining agile and responsive to market forces and the needs of our customers and partner ecosystem.

Is direct-channel conflict ever an issue in your partner ecosystem, and if so how do you mitigate that?

We do not have the conflict of a direct business model. We are therefore totally committed to the channel and completely focussed on how we partner better.

Name one trait you prize highly in partners, and one you deplore

Prize - Cultural alignment and synergy/trusted loyal and high value partnerships.

Deplore - Duplicity de-rails any partnership.

How do you feel your company's margin proposition stacks up against your peers?

Nutanix offers a leading margin stack and rebate programme. We also focus on profit sustainability to enable not only the opportunity of exceptional profit in selling Nutanix products but across its lifecycles. This also drives significant opportunity for incremental services, OEM and adjacent technology sales.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one aspect of your channel performance or strategy overnight, what would it be?

Enable greater automation for our partners sooner, making Nutanix the simplest vendor to work with ever!

What's the most challenging aspect of being a channel leader?

Always trying to be the best, striking a balance of consistency and simplicity, while continuously evolving to stay ahead of the market and have the most compelling partner programme and offerings to enable and support our partner ecosystem.

Based on mileage, I have ridden a bike just over 15.5 x around the world!

Tell us something about yourself most people won't know

Based on mileage, I have ridden a bike just over 15.5 x around the world!

What is your spirit animal?

I've never considered having a spiritual animal, so I took three online tests. One said I'm a bear and the other two said I'm a tiger. So, I will go with tiger!

What would be your walk-on song, and why?

I like to be surprised! But as a clue, I'm a huge optimist, like Rock and very determined…