EC News DeskHewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE, has announced dedicated relief initiatives for partners in support of business continuity in the wake of Covid-19. Businesses across the world are being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and HPE has taken action to help minimise current and future business disruption for its channel partners.
These new interim initiatives have been specifically designed to relieve financial pressure on HPE partners and assist with business continuity planning. They join a number of new financial relief programmes offered by HPE Financial Services as part of a $2 billion allocation to help customers and partners. Financial and support initiatives available to HPE partners include:
Programme changes to support financial planning
- HPE Partner Ready revenue threshold suspension. To provide stability for partners facing financial uncertainty, HPE has suspended the revenue targets required for partners to maintain their status in the HPE Hybrid IT Partner Ready programme for 2021 eligibility, as well as the Aruba Partner Ready for Networking Programme. During 2020, both of these programmes will focus on enabling partners and helping them meet training and certification goals.
Providing buying partners with liquidity
- Improvement in early pay discount terms. To alleviate COVID-related liquidity pressures, from May 1 until July 31, 2020 distributors and service providers in North America that do not participate in factoring programmes can take advantage of extended Early Pay Discount terms to improve their working capital and cash positions.
- Improvement in factoring terms. Within the same timeframe, HPE will extend payment terms from 60 to 90 days in North America and Europe for participants in existing enhanced factoring programmes.
- Suspending SDI targets. To improve predictability of earnings, HPE has temporarily suspended or significantly reduced Strategic Development Initiative targets in most geographies, thus providing a pay-out for distributors from $1 at or near the full percentage rebate target. 2
Hybrid IT partner propositions for customers
- Free remote server management. For the remainder of 2020, HPE will offer its remote server management software Integrated Lights-Out Advanced to partners and customers free of charge, enabling users to configure, monitor and update HPE servers seamlessly from anywhere, with minimal resources.
- New Cloud28+ spotlight page. HPE is working to support our service provider partners’ efforts by offering increased business continuity services to customers via a central Spotlight Page hosted on Cloud28+. This new site provides customers with a means to quickly find the right HPE partner and cloud services capable of supporting their needs. Business continuity services could include, but are not limited to, remote working solutions, extra IT capacity, connectivity, and/or any other complementary offerings.
- Fast-tracked HPE GreenLake options. Partners can leverage HPE GreenLake Quick Quote and targeted mid-market offers to rapidly respond to customer business challenges such as cash preservation and planning for unpredictable IT needs. HPE has developed additional pre-configured reference architectures at pre-agreed pricing that speed time to implementation.
Continuing partner enablement with virtual solutions
To support partners’ continued learning, HPE is introducing the HPE Sales Pro Learning Centre in May, a new sales enablement experience with trainings and micro-learnings, helping sales leaders develop the sophisticated skills needed to sell consumption propositions and solutions.
Partners also benefit from HPE’s newly developed, industry-first practical exam methodology – an innovative virtual delivery that won this year’s IT Certification Council Innovation Award. Moreover, partners can continue to participate in HPE events that have been converted into virtual experiences. Moving forward, as announced by Antonio Neri, HPE Discover 2020 and HPE Partner Growth Summit will convert from an in-person event to HPE Discover 2020 Digital Experience on June 22, with a global audience.
Virtual demonstrations and Proofs of Concept are now possible via the no-cost, self-serve Demonstration Portal, including a number of short, pre-recorded lab demos for partners and customers, and virtual tours of the HPE Briefing Centres.
“Our partners are at the core of HPE, so when they are facing potential challenges, it’s our duty to step up and be a pillar of support,” said Paul Hunter, HPE Worldwide Head of Partner Sales. “Whether it’s helping them drive business as usual, relieve financial pressure, or simply giving them peace of mind during this time, our aim is to have a thriving ecosystem better able to meet customer needs.”
