Broadcom is revamping its partner program to focus on value-based solution providers and increase profitability for its partners, according to its channel leadership team.
After the acquisition in 2023, Kaushik Ram, senior director of global partner programs at Broadcom, said 2024 was a 'transition year,' a year of migration. That meant everything from partner program progression to certification and training paused.
"We knew that it was going to be a year where we needed partners to settle down and understand things like the solution transformation, the operational system changes. So we actually kept them at the levels they were in in the VMware program," Ram said. "And we also paused any of the training and certification requirements to stay in the program. So, fundamentally, what we're doing now is providing the partners with the pathway to maintain themselves in the program, map to the new requirements and map to the transition to what we are, which is VMware by Broadcom," he said.
Driving Value, Strengthening Alignment
In a blog post last week, channel chief Brian Moats said the company's key focus this year is "to drive growth, deliver value, and strengthen alignment by prioritizing a select group of value-based solution providers who are truly investing in the VMware and Broadcom software businesses."
What does "value-based solution provider" mean to Broadcom? Moats said it goes beyond driving bookings, and "requires significant investment in skills, capabilities, and customer success."
"Rather than just fulfilling product transactions, we need solution partners who can architect, sell, and provide services to adopt and deploy – a complete technology platform. To successfully meet this opportunity and serve our mutual customers’ needs, our partners need to level up their skills and offerings," Moats said in the blog.
Customer success is key for Broadcom, said Laura Falko, head of global partner programs, marketing and experience, Broadcom, and one of the best ways to ensure customer success is by letting partners drive the solutions business.
"We focus on a very few top strategic accounts globally, and we rely on our partners to drive the business from all the other accounts that we work with," Falko said. "That's why we are pivoting toward value-based solution providers and partners, because we believe one of the best ways to drive customer success is through customers fully adopting the investments in the solutions that they're making," she said.
That requires a shift toward professional services, Falko said, which is another of Broadcom's priorities this year.
"Partners are essential in the post-sales phase to ensure customers unlock the full potential of their VMware and Broadcom investments," Moats wrote in his blog. He added that Broadcom's Expert Advantage Partners Program offered a range of professional services opportunities to help customers achieve their desired outcomes, but that it was up to the partners to determine how far they wanted to go in the professional services direction.
"Having a professional services organization within Broadcom is not really our model," Falko said, adding that this acquisition followed a similar trajectory as that of the CA acquisition and other prior. "We believe that we should focus on the solutions that we're building, making those best in class, and let our partners, who do this just as well as we do, or even sometimes better, really handle the services and working with the customers on their implementation and deployment," she said. Broadcom's channel is currently in the middle of that journey with VMware, and shifting that business to our partners will help drive customer success, she said.
Defining Value
And customer success is how Broadcom is measuring value for its solution provider partners, Ram added.
"When we talk about what defines 'value,' it's really around customer success. And what the partner is doing to invest in areas of their business and practice that drive customer success, whether it's pre-sales activity, post-sales adoption, or continuous engagement with the customer along their journey. Those are the things that we're looking for the partners to invest in," he said.
While many partners have already made these investments, Moats said in his blog that Broadcom needs more to take the leap. To encourage this, Broadcom is modifying its Advantage Partner Program with a new points-based model to reward and recognize partners based on key value-based attributes, such as bookings, enablement, and services capabilities, he wrote.
"We're going to give partners points for everything they do with us, and we're not going to just look at the transactions singularly," Ram explained. "We're going to give points to partners for the bookings that they're driving, services that they're executing, capabilities and training and certifications that they are adopting and how they map to the new framework that we're executing," he said.
The new program will have four tiers, and new partners will enter at the lowest tier, Registered, and will have to gain points to progress, he said. To measure based on value, Broadcom will add a ratio between performance and booking points and services and capabilities.
"We want to truly measure partners by value, and this is a way for us to understand what that value contribution is going to be for partners and help them understand what they need to do in order to grow up in the tiers," Ram said.
To be clear, he added that existing partners that made the transition from VMware will maintain the level that they were in -- they won't need to start at the Registered tier. Broadcom will allow a full fiscal year, until August 2025, to adopt the new program requirements, he said. Broadcom will consider all activities starting from August 2024 to August 2025 as counting toward program requirements, he said.
"This is another year of migration for us, and we'll give them the entirety of the rest of this fiscal year to adopt and adapt the new requirements of the program," Ram said. "In August, we'll look back 12 months to give them a full year of point attainment, and then they can actually progress to higher levels," he said.
To help, Broadcom is providing free enablement activities and making VMware certification and other resources more accessible, he said. Even if partners don’t plan to offer services, enhancing their technical and sales acumen is critical to support customers, and that's one of the biggest changes, Ram said.
"One of the biggest changes is us moving into role-based certifications aligned to the Broadcom certification framework. Role-based means personnel, like sales, business, technical, architect, etc., versus a company-based certification model," he said. "We're also bringing greater access to Broadcom Knights and Expert Advantage, and making the cost for training more streamlined. It was an expensive investment for partners in the VMware ecosystem to invest in the certifications, so we're making it very, very affordable. A lot of it is actually free when it's on demand, and we're also doing a lot more learning webinars and roadshows and bringing new tools," Ram said.
Broadcom had moved away from some of these offerings, but recognized that doing so left a huge gap, he said. That's why they're bringing them back. All of these changes, Ram noted, are based on feedback from partners.
"This is all partner-driven; feedback they gave us about what they wanted," Ram said. "When we do all this, it's important that partners can see how to measure it, and that's where we are making a significant investment. Especially in tools and self-service, so everything will be measurable and trackable through the partner portal, and including things like how they level up, the hardware they stand around, their certifications, where they get their benefits," he said.
