HPE Presales Program to Sharpen Partners' Competitive Edge

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced HPE Tech Pro Academy, a unique partner presales community in Asia Pacific and Japan that will offer new, ongoing engagement and training opportunities to help partners grow revenues by improving their ability to deliver innovative digital transformation solutions for customers.

Channel partners operate in an environment where marketplaces and technologies are evolving more rapidly than ever before. Increasingly, their customers view technology as a strategic growth driver. To help their customers maintain a competitive edge, it’s critical that channel partners are knowledgeable about the latest technologies – from the benefits they provide to the specifics around how best to integrate them into existing IT infrastructures.

Within these partner organizations, the presales teams that map out proposed systems for customers are under a great deal of pressure to maintain expertise in integrating established and new technologies into efficient solutions that will deliver results both immediately, and into the future. By providing region-specific curricula and easy access to HPE technical expertise, HPE Tech Pro Academy helps them do exactly that.

The HPE Tech Pro Academy program is designed to help members achieve career-advancing objectives in three categories:

· Connect – Through a single point of access, members will have access to exclusive online platforms and in-person networking opportunities that provide an unprecedented ability to participate in a focused, global presales community that connects them with other presales professionals in their markets and region, as well as with HPE presales team members from across the globe

· Learn – HPE will provide members with an ongoing stream of education opportunities that map back to a structured lesson plan that is:

– Designed to enable individuals to evolve and build their skills and knowledge

– Developed and delivered in collaboration with HPE original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and strategic alliances partners

– Localized on a country-by-country basis for maximum impact and value

– Aligned to HPE Partner Ready Competencies

· Grow – The program features an industry-first rewards program for partner presales professionals based on tracking sales generated by Tech Pro Academy members, providing them with the opportunity to benefit individually while increasing revenue for the partner organizations they work for through increased solutions sales

“HPE Tech Pro Academy puts the spotlight on the presales community, giving them a level of emphasis that few vendors have done so far,” said Sharon Hiu, Research Analyst, Canalys. “By creating a single-point access for presales information, and encouraging engagement with gamification elements and rewards, this program can truly be a differentiator.”

HPE Tech Pro Academy was previewed at the HPE Technology and Solutions Summit in Bangkok, which was attended by more than 400 leading Asia Pacific and Japan channel presales professionals. Program highlights for the rest of the year include a series of product demos, proof-of-concepts, technical showcases, as well as ongoing Partner Ready certification programs.

“HPE Tech Pro Academy is an excellent way of bringing people together. Through this program, anyone, anywhere can come up with an issue, and the community will help them,” said Binu Varghese, Services Head, Shro Systems. “In our organization, we have customers from all over the world. Geographically, it can be difficult to support them. With HPE Tech Pro Academy’s extensions to worldwide teams and support, it will enable us to provide quicker support to our customers. This is a great initiative.”

“HPE Tech Pro Academy provides a very good platform for us communicate with each other and other presales professionals. Beyond solutions, when we learn more, have best practices or solved certain problems, we will be able to share them with each other and the entire community,” said Saikat Chakraborty, Regional Manager of Sales, Smart Planet IT Solutions

“HPE Tech Pro Academy gives you the opportunity to get certified, gain more knowledge to use with existing customers and reach out to new customers, and pass learnings to colleagues,” said Anant Dhawan, Business Head of Solution and Services, MM9. “Through HPE Tech Pro Academy, we get to upgrade our skills, learn more, and be part of a program that actually helps us to grow – first by building ourselves and then to build so many others.”

“There are many things that are part of HPE Tech Pro Academy but they are structured well. I was speechless at the activities planned for the tech pros,” said Alston Noronha, Presales Technical Consultant, Redington.

HPE Tech Pro Academy builds on HPE's industry-leading Partner Ready program, to create the premier partner presales brand and community in the Asia Pacific and Japan region. Partner Ready is the single HPE Global program for key partner business models that provides enablement resources, incentives and tools to drive revenue growth and partner investment.

“More than 80% of HPE’s business in Asia Pacific and Japan goes through channel partners, so their success is our success,” said Joybrata Mukherjee, India Leader - Channels, SMB and Service Provider, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India. “HPE Tech Pro Academy is designed to give partners what they’ve told us they need – a better way to achieve deeper technical skills and expertise. For the organizations, having a presales team that can deliver technologically advanced solutions designed to deliver maximum business value is critical to maintaining competitive edge. For the pre-sales professionals – the deeper their knowledge, the brighter their career prospects.”