Robert Gosling (Oracle)
Oracle is in the process of transitioning A/NZ partners across to its ‘modernised’ PartnerNetwork (OPN), which was rejigged to recognise the shift from traditional on-premises to cloud focus.
Oracle A/NZ general manager of alliances and channels Robert Gosling told ARN his top priority was to help partners in A/NZ transition across from the old to the new program structure.
“We’re urgently transitioning our partners to the modern OPN and as part of that we’re mapping what tracks they want to sign up for and expertise they wish to gain," Gosling said.
The modernised program has done away with the traditional tiering system in a bid to identify partners with certain expertise, offer benefits focused on customer success and help identify new market opportunities through clear program tracks.
There are three cloud tracks focused on Build, Sell and Services, as well as a traditional Hardware and Licence track.
Partners can sign up to one of four tracks depending on their business model or across multiple tracks.
Gosling said the previous partner program had been around for a very long time and was predominantly based on a traditional on-premises business model. Gosling has been with Oracle for about 30 years and took on the A/NZ channel role 18 months ago.
“It was getting difficult for partners to differentiate themselves and pivot effectively into the new cloud world,” he said.
“A lot of the qualifiers in our older OPN agreements didn’t really mean a lot to our customers. The modern OPN has been redesigned to make it easier for partners and customers to pivot to cloud, and we haven’t dropped our traditional business."
Furthermore, the Cloud Build track is aimed at the ISV community; the Sell track is aimed at partners that want to resell on the Oracle Cloud; and the Services track is aimed at partners that want to implement the Oracle Cloud platform — whether it’s SaaS, OCI, PaaS or IaaS products.
Gosling said there are certain sets of enablers within each track for partners to gain expertise through Oracle University with training and certifications, creating a sandbox and marketing development material.
“The important part of the new program is that a partner can gain expertise in certain tracks. For example in the Service track, they can get expertise in Oracle’s SaaS product suites, OCI, PaaS or IaaS products. It really means something to our customers and they look at the expertise that partners have,” he said.
Gosling said both customers and the Oracle internal sales team will have a clearer view of who the appropriate partners are for the go-to-market play they’re involved in.
“It provides much greater clarity on partner capabilities," he explained. "It’s easier for customers to determine which partners can do the work, and easier and simpler for our partners to get onboard. There’s also a number of benefits associated with each track,” he said.
“Our distribution partners are also working closely with us to make sure their partners are going on to the modern OPN.”
Oracle conducted a number of workshops with partners globally to come up with the new-look program.
“We were determined to modernise the program and the structure was driven by partner feedback,” he said.
Gosling also touched on Oracle’s ISV program, which involves two streams: one is focused on traditional ISVs with on-premises applications that are migrating towards a SaaS model and the second is focused on recruiting cloud-native ISVs.
“Both of those are equally important to us,” Gosling said. “The ISV organisation is a direct sales organisation with its own investment and part of that is to make sure that we focus on the right ISVs that are either industry-specific or very niche.”
“We have a strong value proposition for ISVs that goes beyond costs. There’s a number of elements around the way we architect our OCI services to make it attractive to ISVs. Most of it is based on the infrastructure layer, but there’s a number of PaaS layers they can also take advantage of. They can offer a complete solution around the Oracle Cloud.”
