Splunk (SPLK) CEO Doug Merritt and his lieutenants will lean heavily on VARs, systems integrators, distributors and other types of channel partners to fuel the company's next stage of growth. Merritt and his lieutenants revealed clues about Splunk's accelerating channel strategy during an earnings call Tuesday.
The partner-centric statements come during a key week for Splunk and its rivals. Next-generation IT management, monitoring, data, security and performance management tools are taking center stage at Amazon's AWS re:Invent 2016 conference this week in Las Vegas.
At the conference, the company unveiled Splunk Light -- a solution for small IT environments that automates log search and analysis, according to Praveen Rangnath, senior director of marketing, Cloud Solutions for the Splunk/AWS partnership.
The result: Small IT teams and developers leveraging Amazon Web Services gain access to Splunk‘s end-to-end visibility and insights at an entry price point of $3.00 per day (billed monthly), the company said.
Splunk Channel Partner Moves
Meanwhile, Merritt on Tuesday thanked multiple technology partners and channel partners for their role in Splunk's growth.
Among those earning Merritt's praise: Kinney Group, Splunk's Public Sector Services Partner of the Year for 2016, helped the company to expand a Rackspace engagement that involves core decision analytics across operations, security, compliance, app development, and business analytics.
Also, CFO Dave Conte pointed to systems integrators like Accenture as key partners going forward. " are really, really important partners for us," he noted. "Accenture, in particular, is not only are they building practice around Splunk but they are baking Splunk into a series of solutions that they rolled directly to market."
Splunk will augment the systems integrator and technology partner strategy (i.e., AWS, Cisco Systems, EMC, etc.) with classic distributors and VARs, he added. "What we all would like to see at Splunk is more partner resources being able to do everything from the initial door knock, chat response, phone call, all the way through to implementation or at least contract delivery," Conte said.
Among the additional names to know: Brooke Cunningham, AVP, global partner programs and operations. During a recent ChannelE2E interview, Cunningham described her decision to join Splunk in May 2016, recent milestones, and next moves in the IT channel.
Cunningham’s core focus: Refine, mature and enhance the company’s reseller program — while delivering an end-to-end partner experience that increases partner loyalty. It’s about simplicity, predictability and profitability for Splunk’s partners, she says.
Customers Sound Pleased
True believers in Splunk include FamilySearch International -- the world's largest genealogy organization. The company hosts, maintains and shares genealogical records at FamilySearch.org and through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries.
FamilySearch uses Splunk App for AWS to gain real-time visibility into user operational and security-related activity, according to Gary Stokes, director of engineering at FamilySearch. Stokes raved about the Splunk offerings during a ChannelE2E meeting today in Las Vegas.
In its Q3 2017 results, announced Tuesday, Splunk said total revenues were $245 million, up 40% year-over-year. The results beat Wall Street's expectations.
