‘All of this has to do with making GreenLake super, super easy to work with,’ says Hewlett Packard Enterprise Vice President of Global GreenLake Partner and Service Provider Sales Ulrich ‘Uli’ Seibold. ‘That is my mantra.’
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Vice President of Global GreenLake Partner and Service Provider Sales Ulrich “Uli” Seibold says a new HPE GreenLake simplified tiered pricing model is one of a number of changes that are paying big dividends for partners.
Seibold, who took the helm of the GreenLake partner and service provider business 18 months ago, has made dramatic improvements that have powered a 22-point increase in the HPE North America GreenLake partner satisfaction scores.
Among the reasons for the increases are a number of critical GreenLake tools that have reduced the GreenLake lead to close ratio from eight months to below five months over the past year and half.
“All of this has to do with making GreenLake super, super easy to work with,” said Seibold. “That is my mantra.”
Seibold credited the leadership of HPE Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Simon Ewington along with improvements made by the HPE operations organization for the GreenLake advances.
The GreenLake partner sales simplification offensive helped drive 48 percent growth to $1.9 billion in the most recent quarter in HPE’s annualized revenue run rate, a critical measure of the GreenLake consumption services business.
Overall in the most recent quarter, HPE added 2,000 customer organizations to its GreenLake tally with a total of 39,000 unique customers.
Here are five big GreenLake improvements made under Seibold’s leadership over the past 18 months.
New Simplified Tiered Pricing Model In North America
HPE has implemented a new simplified tiered pricing model for HPE GreenLake consumption in North America that provides lower prices as customers increase their storage consumption.
As customers move from price band one for zero to 100 terabytes of data to price band two with 101 to 200 terabytes and then to price band three with 201 to 300 terabytes of data they are rewarded with lower-priced storage consumption charges, said Seibold.
With the focus on making consumption simpler for both customers and partners, HPE has eliminated the “super complicated” accruals and credits that were part of the previous GreenLake pricing model, said Seibold. If customers use more storage capacity, they are rewarded with lower prices. “It is very easy to calculate,” he said. “That is the big change. It is a simplification for partners.”
The tiered pricing is part of Seibold’s all-out offensive to “simplify” the GreenLake model for customers and partners. “With all price points, if customers use more the next price will be a lower cost and it is very easy to calculate,” he said.
A Dramatic Reduction In Time It Takes To Get A GreenLake Price Quote In North America
HPE is now delivering 40 percent of all GreenLake price quotes within one day, down from 10-plus days 18 months ago, said Seibold.
What’s more, GreenLake’s lead to close ratio has been reduced from eight months to below five months over the past 18 months, said Seibold.
“The turnaround for a partner is much better,” he said. “If you are a sales rep, five months versus eight months makes a big difference.”
Among the reasons for the dramatic improvement are a number of GreenLake tools, including a price quoting tool that has paid big dividends, said Seibold.
A Simplified GreenLake Invoice Model For Partners
HPE has also simplified the invoice model for partners, reducing the number of invoices in some cases from as many as 15 to a single invoice for each customer.
“You should not underestimate the importance of one invoice,” said Seibold. “All the different invoices for different customers come on the same day.”
Previously, partners would get a new invoice for every change request.
On average partners were getting as many as 10 separate invoices rather than a single invoice, said Seibold. “This is a super improvement,” he said.
Faster Turnaround On Partner Rebates For GreenLake
HPE is now paying out GreenLake partner rebate incentives three times faster than it did 18 months ago, said Seibold.
That has led to improved GreenLake partner profitability, he added.
Furthermore, he said, it has provided consistency in payment downstream to partner sales reps, said Seibold, so they know precisely when they will be paid. “This is super significant,” he said.
A New HPE GreenLake Private Cloud, Alletra MP Disconnected Opportunity
HPE Private Cloud Enterprise and HPE Alletra Storage MP are now being offered in “disconnected” air-gapped versions for partners to capture the “sovereign” private cloud service opportunity, said Seibold.
To take advantage of the “disconnected” sovereign cloud opportunity, partners must earn the HPE Sovereignty competency available in the HPE Partner Ready Vantage Managed Services Center of Expertise.
Putting the GreenLake platform in a disconnected sovereign environment opens the door for partners to manage the sovereign cloud on-premises.
“This is massive and significant and will change the market even more than many people believe today,” said Seibold. ‘This is a massive multibillion-dollar opportunity for our partners.”
