Pride and Appreciation: Partnering with Purpose

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My sister says that when you’re a parent, you look forward to the days when your kids start doing things on their own, with less dependency on you. A time when siblings play and work together, rather than you to being the instigator. She says there’s a sense of pride knowing that you’ve spent enough time with them early on and have built a strong foundation upon which they can flourish. You appreciate what they’ve done, and are excited to see what they can accomplish next.

 

It’s a similar experience that I have when it comes to our EMC partners. In the IIG content management division, we’ve laid the foundation for growth, including advanced products and solutions with industry analyst accolades, go-to-market support, and innovative channel programs, such as Springboard. We’re starting to see the fruits of our labor.

 

As we prepare for Thanksgiving in the United States, I want to share a few examples and express my gratitude to our partners who are building upon this foundation and redefining partnership. There are many more opportunities ahead, so if you’re interested in joining or driving some of these efforts, leave a post here, or contact IIGPartnerGTM@emc.com.

 

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Springing into Success

Our partners are already embracing the new Springboard program and redefining the way they do business with EMC and each other. I’m thrilled to share that Deloitte has already been accepted as a Master Partner in the program and is gearing up for a successful 2015 with Member Partners that will be announced soon.  Similarly, The Windward Group and Beach Street Consulting haveannounced a strategic partnership, which marries technical offerings with effective go-to-market approaches from each organization. Seeing these valued partners embrace this methodology is a significant milestone toward our mutual growth efforts.

 

InfoArchive Consortium

Talk about taking the ball and running with it! I’m thrilled that some of our partners invested time and resources into one of our key products, EMC InfoArchive, and saw the amazing potential in it. They proactively developed the InfoArchive Consortium, which brings together a like-minded group of solution providers that are able to offer experience, credibility and proven technical capability to customers. Collectively, they ensure that customers benefit from market-leading consultancy and implementation, and the best possible foundation for their archiving system. Companies like Crawford Technologies, Flatirons Solutions, fme Group (new!), IS Solutions, The Windward Group, and Solix, are leveraging each other’s expertise, sales and regional reach, and go-to-market efforts to build successful business opportunities. We’ve already seen huge success with BMO Harris Bank saving $5M annually, and we expect more to come from this great example of pioneering partnership.

 

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ApplicationXtender Momentum

The ApplicationXtender (AX) partner community is strong and thriving.  Year after year our partners deliver consistent results and are committed to innovation.  AX continues to have strong customer satisfaction scores and a strong maintenance stream.  Recently, EMC has provided more visibility for our partner solutions by adding a new AX Preferred Solution category to the EMC Solutions Catalog.  We also brought back “Tuesday’s at Two,” which is a webcast focused on helping partners get real-time updates on AX, Captiva and other channel products. But beyond what EMC is doing, we’re seeing a grass roots effort being driven by AX partners who want to share their IP with each other, to improve customer experience and increase their own prospects.

 

Reinforcing the Foundation: IIG Partner Community

To support our partners in engaging with each other, EMC is about to launch a private community where, among other things, they can share IP, best practices and networking opportunities. We’re excited to see how this open approach generates increased benefits to both our customers and partners, leveraging great products and a strong channel. I encourage you to visit the public IIG partner community, learn how to join the private community, and start having conversations around opportunities to team with complementary IIG partners to expand your business.