“Our goal right now is to be able to stand behind what we are offering you and extend that quote validity because while we still see prices and costs increasing in the coming months we see it moderating and so we are leaning in to help you close more business with longer validities,” says HPE Executive Vice President Neil MacDonald.
HPE surprised partners at the HPE Partner Growth Summit by announcing that effective Tuesday, the company will extend price quote validity from 14 days to 30 days for servers, storage and GreenLake Flex.
Partners applauded wildly to the new pricing stability after HPE Executive Vice President and General Manager of Servers Neil MacDonald made the formal announcement before a jam-packed crowd of 1,700 partners.
The 30-day price validity comes four months after HPE informed partners that the company was making the changes in “pricing and quote validity” to 14 days in the wake of rising memory prices and supply constraints plaguing the industry.
“I’ve consistently heard from you that dealing with 14-day quotes is really challenging to get through customer decision cycles while the quote is still valid,” said MacDonald (pictured). “That’s creating a lot more work for you. The great news is that starting tomorrow we are moving our standard quote validity out to 30 days for new servers, storage and GreenLake Flex quotes.”
MacDonald said that HPE made the move in response to component prices moderating. “During the first half of the year, commodity costs were changing in an extremely dynamic way, which is why we had to shorten up validities,” he said. “Our goal right now is to be able to stand behind what we are offering you and extend that quote validity because while we still see prices and costs increasing in the coming months we see it moderating and so we are leaning in to help you close more business with longer validities.”
Partners said they see the 30-day price quote validity bringing new price stability to the sales process, dramatically reducing the wasted sales cycles from bringing new rising price quotes to customers time and time again.
Pat O’Dell, managing partner at HPE partner CPP Associates, Clinton, N.J., said he was thrilled by the new 30-day price stability and the news that customers could expect more moderate price increases.
Encouraging News For Partners
“That is very encouraging for partners because customers like most people like to deal with certainty,” said O’Dell, the head of HPE’s North America Partner Advisory Council. “They want to know that they can budget, plan and act. In the previous environment everything was a fire drill. You had to get your quote really fast and meanwhile prices were going up. Now we can get back to a more normal state of business.”
O’Dell said he expects the 30-day price quote validity to have a direct impact on helping partners win deals versus HPE competitors. “Less volatility works to HPE’s advantage,” he said.
Dan Molina, co-president and CTO of Nth Generation, San Diego, one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, said the new 30-day price quote validity is “just what the doctor ordered” to bring price stability to customers. “Customers cannot move that fast,” he said of the 14-day validity. “This provides more stability to better serve our customers.”
Molina said he expects the 30-day price quote validity will “significantly streamline” the quoting process for Nth Generation customers.
“Not having to go back as often to our customers with new quotes is going to make it like the good old days,” he said. “It’s a great defensive and offensive move by HPE to make sure that we are staying competitive in the market. It’s going to help us to continue to improve sales.”
Molina said he expects customer demand to remain strong throughout this year and into 2027 with Nth Generation anticipating double-digit sales growth for its HPE business this year.
Michael Haley, chief business development officer and co-founder of Edge Solutions, an HPE partner headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, said the new pricing stability is “great” for the channel, customers and HPE. “This improves predictability for our customers so they can have more faith in us,” he said. “It will improve our profitability and our stickiness with customers.”
Visibility To Work With HPE Partners Downstream
Paul Bay, CEO of Ingram Micro, which just won HPE’s global distributor of the year award, said the new 30-day price quote validity gives the distributor “visibility” to work with HPE partners downstream to close deals. “Clarity is a good thing,” he said. “We have been working closely with HPE. We put our partners in the middle of everything we do and HPE has been good about communicating on pricing.”
Bay said even with the price increases, demand has remained strong. “There is still a lot of demand in the market that we’re able to fulfill from a product standpoint across the industry,” he said. “This helps!”
HPE Executive Vice President & General Manager of HPE Operations Mark Bakker, who oversees the company’s global supply chain, told HPE partners that although it is a very “dynamic” supply environment, HPE is well-positioned to “navigate” what he called a “supply-demand mismatch” and the “cost” pressures associated with it.
In fact, he said, HPE has “very strong” long-standing relationships with suppliers that it is bringing to bear to help partners. “We continue to work with them on long term capacity agreements to make sure that we are well covered,” he said. “It is tight. There is no question about it and the situation will continue to be tight for the foreseeable future.”
A Focus On Getting An ‘Unfair Share’ Of Parts
HPE’s focus is on getting “supply” and at the same time managing cost and pricing, said Bakker. “No parts is no business,” he said. “So parts is the first and foremost important thing. We are laser-focused on getting our unfair share of what is needed.”
HPE is also providing partners with preconfigured “Smart” bundles in its online configuration ordering tool, said MacDonald. Those workload specific templates are based on the “best available supply,” he said.
HPE has also introduced new SmartChoice SKUs that are competitively priced, which are also aligned to best available supply. “Faster delivery starts with knowing where the best available supply is,” said MacDonald.
MacDonald thanked partners for working with the company through a “pretty-rough, tough-time” over the last few months. “We know that the supply environment was difficult and that it added a lot of work, too much work for you and your teams,” he said. “You are dealing with supply availability challenges. You’re dealing with higher prices and pricing changes. And you are dealing with customers who all have serious budget challenges because of the dynamics in the industry as a whole.”
While HPE does not expect the “supply situation to resolve anytime soon,” MacDonald said HPE has made changes that “we believe will be a start to help you in this circumstance.”
