Technical expertise is crucial to our customers’ success now more than ever, which is why Broadcom is making a big investment in partners who bring this expertise coupled with a strong professional services practice. Broadcom Knights, who have advanced training and certification requirements, have long been key to this success. They are masters when it comes to the ins and outs associated with sales, pre-sales, implementation, architecture and support for Broadcom’s software solutions. So, we are excited to offer a similar program for our partners to support our VMware customers. Broadcom Knights with a specialty in VCF will allow us to help these customers to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform within their unique infrastructure. They will also enable our Expert Advantage Partners (EAP) to drive greater impact while enhancing and growing VCF in-region partnerships and expertise across the globe. We had our first training event for these technical professionals last month at our Americas partner event in Orlando.
Helping Partners Deliver Exceptional Value to VCF customers
Traditionally, most software organizations focus on the reselling and delivery of licenses. As products get more complex and the business problems get larger, services play a much more integral role in the success of adopting the product. Traditionally, services partners were always brought in late as part of the discussion. We learned from our previous acquisitions of the CA and the Symantec products that services partners can make a big difference in terms of making sure customers are getting the most out of the product. Metrics have shown that when we involve services earlier, customers are able to make full use of their solutions and thereby achieve their business objectives more easily, consistently and cost-efficiently.
At Broadcom, we’re not interested in just selling licenses. We want to build long-term relationships with our customers and make sure they are hitting their big business objectives. By investing in Broadcom Knights with a specialty in VCF, our Expert Advantage Partners can show customers how to take pieces of VCF that they might not have used previously and then apply it to their business. In addition to fully leveraging VCF, these Knights can help customers fully integrate and become more efficient with their existing Broadcom solutions such as Clarity. The risk is if the customers don’t realize the full value of their software, it becomes “dreaded” shelfware.
Showcasing Broadcom Expert Advantage Partner Innovations on INSIGHTS
Just as Expert Advantage Partners have always been able to showcase their Broadcom Knights on our INSIGHTS Platform, they now will be able to promote Broadcom Knights with a specialty in VCF as well. This dynamic database enables customers to discover solutions, integrations and other resources developed by our Expert Advantage Partners, enhancing their experience with Broadcom Software and VMware products. I am continuously impressed with our Expert Advantage Partners’ technical innovations, integration successes, enablement capabilities and overall consistency and trust that they have demonstrated with our customers.
For example, in addition to designing “jumpstart” packages to help customers easily adopt VMware and Broadcom solutions, our partners are using their own tools or intellectual property to make assessments and deployment recommendations to customers. They also are actively leveraging Broadcom’s own partner tools, developed in-house, such as the VMware Optimization Assessment, the VMware Cloud Maturity Model Assessment, and the VMware Health Analyzer.
Broadcom’s shift to more partner-led services provides a big opportunity for both our consulting services partners and our customers. We’re counting on our partners to help our customers fully adopt our technologies to help drive better business outcomes. Our focus is on our customers’ long-term success. With our partners by our side, we can spend time with our customers to ensure they are using our solutions to the fullest.
Partner with an Expert Advantage Partner to Better Serve Your Customers
As President and CEO Hock Tan wrote in a blog, our partner ecosystem is essential to our customers’ success. The customers we serve must meet very complex requirements and have very complex IT environments with many silos; it’s not easy to integrate those silos into a streamlined platform. That takes heterogeneous integration and technical expertise. As the new program for Broadcom Knights with a specialty in VCF continues to roll out, we will be bringing you new updates and benefits.
If you are a customer, we invite you to check out Partner INSIGHTS to find the right partner and services for you. If you are a partner without a service practice but want to offer services to your customers, find an expert on the INSIGHTS portal and start a conversation. You can also connect with the Broadcom Partner Help Desk to determine which partner can best support you and your customers. Similarly, if you believe your services practice would benefit by joining the Expert Advantage Partner Program, connect with the Partner Help Desk at partner.helpdesk@broadcom.com.