Helping SMB customers identify the right technologies to future-proof their businesses and stay competitive is top of mind for many partners.
We recently spoke with Rony Adaimy, North America ProLiant Server Category Manager at HPE, to learn more about why HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers stand out as the leading compute solution for SMBs—and why teaming up with SYNNEX is a great choice both for your practice and your customers.
Why is the HPE partner ecosystem the best option for both resellers and their customers?
Because of the innovation that HPE brings to the market, and the history that HPE has of working with channel partners to bring solutions to customers. We are #1 or #2 in each and every segment of products in the market.
Like our CEO says, HPE is advancing the way people live and work by offering secure, automated, and smart-optimized platforms. We’re always ahead of our competitors in the way we bring technology and solutions to the market.
What sets HPE servers apart from those competitors?
First and foremost, it’s our server security—it starts from the supply chain and goes beyond the lifecycle, until customers are ready to decommission their systems.
We build our servers in extremely secure factories, and our platforms are equipped with technology that detects whether servers have been accessed during transport or shipping, and whether they are connected to power/Internet or not. We have the technology to detect if anything changes: at the start, the boot level, and throughout operations. We also have a crypto-erase solution to decommission a server properly and securely from any environment by completely deleting any data, forms of NAND storage, and server configurations. Our competitors do not even have a close solution when we’re talking about security.
We also have a distinguished channel supply, delivering ready-to-go systems to the market through partners like SYNNEX, who can add additional options and do the integrations, and then deliver those units very quickly to their customers.
The BTO (build-to-order) model or Smart Buy Express, which provides a variety of platforms with different processors, can also be delivered through SYNNEX. We pride ourselves in making this program available to our partners in general, specifically the SMB partners.
What differentiates the HPE ProLiant Gen10 server line for SMBs?
The technology and innovation we put in our servers are key differentiators. When it came to our Gen10 technology, we were very clear this is the world’s most secure industry-standard server. We keep evolving this technology, and now we’re including intelligent automation and optimization to deliver an unbeatable, very smart platform to the market.
When we’re talking about intelligent automation, we're talking about InfoSight on servers. It’s known in the market to be one of the best technologies for automation and analytics. The best part is that InfoSight costs nothing. If you’re in sales, you may say, “why would I want to push a product at zero dollars when I'm not going to be making a profit?” It’s a valid question, we hear that from a lot of our partners; however, that is a key part of InfoSight.
An SMB customer might not have the bandwidth or the capabilities to deploy InfoSight. So partners looking to grow their business and drive customer loyalty can wrap their services around InfoSight and deliver it as a managed service, where you help them monitor and check the health of their environment and proactively advise customers.
Why is SYNNEX a great choice for HPE partners?
HPE and SYNNEX have been partners for 20 years, bringing solutions and technology to resellers and end users together. The team at SYNNEX is one of the best in the industry—they understand their partners’ and customers’ needs. At the same time, they also understand how we deliver to the market and they work hand in hand with us to create best-in-class programs for their partners.
They are also extremely fast, with 9 warehouses strategically located across the continental US to fulfill customers’ needs efficiently. Partners can get a server that’s built exactly like a factory integration, coming directly from SYNNEX, shipped incredibly fast to cut down on any delays posed by factory builds.
SYNNEX adds value by leveraging comprehensive integrations that offer a range of services, like value add, OEM manufacturing, and free integration, which is key to partners in the SMB space. And they are always there to support their partners and customers by creating programs and industry events to keep partners educated and aware of what’s happening in the market, or by simply providing the right incentives to drive HPE business.
How can partners find the perfect HPE server solution for their customers?
We have two different platforms that we mainly leverage for partners. Partners can use iQuote to configure any BTO (build-to-order) server, see which units are in stock at SYNNEX, add the right options to these units, and create a quote from the tool itself. And iQuote can guide partners through specific solutions, summarizing the choices they have to find the right solution for their customers.
If partners are looking at more complex situations, which SYNNEX can help with as well, we have OCA (One Config Advanced) or OCS (One Config Simple). This is what we call CTO (configure to order)—basically custom builds. We’ll build from scratch based on the customer’s specific requirements. But partners only need to go this route when there are very specific requirements that are not available in products on the shelf. Those two tools make our partners’ lives easier, so they don't have to guess what solution works where.
How is hybrid changing the way partners sell server solutions, and how can partners deliver a cloud-like experience on-premises?
Digital transformation is not only changing the way we consume and provide items to the market, but also the way we’re selling server solutions.
The hybrid motion has definitely helped customers look at the security, availability, and accessibility of their systems and data. While we have seen a lot of customers go to cloud, we’ve also seen a lot of them stay on-premises or come back to on-premises.
For our partners, it was essential for them to adapt to how customers consume specific workloads, and tailor their solutions around workload base versus just a hardware base.
We offer consumption-model pricing, so customers can turn on and turn off systems as they need, and we charge them based on that. They are able to scale up and down. It’s a rapidly growing environment for HPE, and this is basically thanks to our partners, who definitely adapted fast to sell within that motion.
What IT trends should reseller partners consider to future-proof their businesses?
We’re getting into a situation where this is all new to us, given the circumstances with the COVID-19 virus. It’s changing the way customers are delivering their go-to-market strategies. Whether that’s at schools, universities, large corporations, or even smaller ones, there’s a different way of delivering content.
We are seeing schools that are exclusively doing online classes, and customers who are asking their employees to work from home. That did not exist in this way in the past. Even more, the no-travel policy is generating more and more online meetings, including VoIP, Skype, and video. All these trends are going to drive and shape some of the solutions that will help our partners deliver to their customers’ needs.
One of these solutions is VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)—we may see a spike here. Another one is hosted services. Retailers or e-retailers will be another trend in the market. All this will happen online, and you need capacity, power, and processing. That’s going to drive some of the technology purchases and trends in the next few months.
What would you tell resellers who are new to HPE servers or the HPE ecosystem?
To resellers that are new to HPE, thank you for this opportunity and welcome onboard. I’m sure your relationship with SYNNEX will help you get up to speed quickly. But above all, above the technology and the solutions, I want to make sure you understand that at HPE, we care about your success.
We have a set of programs designed to make you very successful in the market. The first one is the demo program, where you can bring technology to your customers to test and play with for up to 90 days. They can return it at no cost if it doesn’t work in their environment. Another program is trade-in servers—we care about making sure we take out all the technology that’s vulnerable and could cause issues for customers.
We also have programs in place to make sure it’s lucrative for you to do business with HPE. One great incentive we have is called Engage and Grow. SYNNEX can help you track your points, so when you sell Smart Buy Express products or some of our CTO platforms, you’ll be eligible to get points that are translated into dollars. And since you’re new to HPE, we expect you’ll have customers that haven’t been exposed to HPE. We award our partners very lucratively for bringing us that new business.
To learn more about SYNNEX and HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers, see 5 Insider Tips to Finding the Right ProLiant Servers for SMB Customers, Why ProLiant Gen10 Features Matter for SMBs, and our Partner Resource Hub: ProLiant for SMBs. Have questions? Email us at [email protected].
