Since that historic event, two new partner programs were created that originated from the HP PartnerOne program. HP PartnerOne was retitled HP PartnerFirst for HP Inc., while the Hewlett Packard Enterprise version is named Partner Ready.
HP Inc. PartnerFirst has addressed the new market trends for channel partners as well as helping customers transform to new business models since going live earlier this year.
PartnerFirst has turned into a major asset for the solution providers who are working to protect the digital enterprise, empowering data-driven organizations and enabling workplace productivity with new mobility solutions.
The HP PartnerOne program has withstood the test of time. The program was introduced to the market back in 2002. Back then the strategy with HP PartnerOne was to help partners grow top-line revenue and bottom-line profitability, reward performance and make the program administration more streamlined and easy.
Today the PartnerFirst program makes up the DNA of the organization and has been able to touch more than 145,000 members of the channel community around the world.
Channel partners typically look to work with a vendor that has a comprehensive product portfolio, which can address customer needs from an end-to-end perspective. That’s step one. Step two is equally important and that’s providing the channel with a partner program that ensures profitability, demand and enablement.
PartnerFirst has consistently delivered results for channel partners by putting a heavy focus on ensuring partner profitability. With that solution providers have been able to reduce the number of vendors they work with which speeds up their go-to-market activities and dramatically streamlines the training and certification process saving money in the long run for a partner.
One of the main areas of PartnerFirst that has made this program so effective is it pays the partner from the beginning and does not impose any sales limits. This highly predictable compensation approach has helped channel partners with cash flow and enabled them to invest properly in building the right solutions for customers.
Predictable compensation is one thing, but a great partner program has to make sure the channel’s sales pipeline is constantly full. The PartnerFirst plan does this extremely well by providing leads that can be converted into business opportunities.
It also creates the demand in the market, captures the leads and then passes those qualified leads onto the channel. These leads are specifically targeted to the best suited partner in the right geographic area with the ability to provide higher margin professional services.
HP Inc. PartnerFirst is not only filling up the channel’s pipeline but is also enables this community to gain more profitable revenue through services.