Monday Morning Impact – October 10

Gartner Cites Top Technology Priorities for Midsize Enterprises

Security and risk management, application/integration strategies, and infrastructure and operations are the top three technology priorities for midsize enterprises (MSEs) in 2022, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc.

“MSEs are shifting investments and even increasing budgets to fund their top technology priorities,” said Mike Cisek, VP Analyst at Gartner. “However, the accelerated rate of change in security, infrastructure, applications and cloud ecosystems complicates the selection of new tools, requiring MSE technology leaders to rapidly operationalize investments to deliver time to value.”

As MSE technology leaders head into the 2023 budgeting season, they face challenges including inflationary headwinds and a potential economic recession, according to Gartner. Due to the size and scale of their operations, MSEs are often the first to feel the effects of inflation and are most susceptible to long-term negative impacts.

In the 2022 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey, 86% of MSE CEOs cited a belief that there would be a significant rise in inflation, with the majority anticipating that inflationary impacts would be felt for the subsequent 12 to 36 months. The most common response to inflation among MSE CEOs was to increase prices, followed by cost optimization efforts.

“Historically, the response to economic uncertainty has been to cut costs as opposed to championing new or additional investment,” added Cisek. “Yet within a typical MSE, IT spending accounts for 4.7% of total revenue on average, leaving little room for cost optimization efforts.

“During times of economic uncertainty, digital investments must align to business priority and support finance’s cash-flow strategies. MSEs can most effectively navigate inflation by rationalizing their technology portfolios while investing in solutions that will yield financial or productivity benefits to IT, employees, and customers.”

The survey was conducted from March through April 2022 among 134 MSE CIOs and IT leaders. Respondents were asked to identify current active IT projects, which correlated with their top technology priorities. Gartner clients can learn more in “The Top 3 Technology Priorities in Midsize Enterprises.”

Channel Impact^®
The data demonstrate not only the inherent opportunity for channel partners, but also the importance of timing in the budget cycle.

Nutanix Unveils Partner Program Updates and Incentives

Nutanix, a San Jose-based hybrid multi-cloud computing company, has announced the next era of Elevate, its global partner program.

New updates include expanded incentives that are now aimed not only partner organizations, but individual sellers and systems engineers. The New Business Individual Incentive will reward individual sellers and systems engineers at eligible resellers and services providers each time they sell Nutanix into net-new accounts.

The company also launched a Channel Led Selling Rebate Incentive, designed to reward resellers who drive deals through the entire sales cycle autonomously. It’s also added new tool sets like the recently revamped Sizer 6.0 capacity planning tool and enhancements to Nutanix’s Performance + Deal Registration program.

The program now requires a new Sizing Associate accreditation for all levels, designed to support rapid capacity planning, quoting and order fulfillment.

“The IT industry is at an inflection point in how customers want to procure and consume technology,” said Christian Alvarez, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales at Nutanix. “With our updates to the Elevate program, we’ve addressed many of our partners’ needs to engage with customers through their lifecycle – not just selling the technology, but enabling them to adopt, perform, expand, and ultimately renew.”

In the coming months, Nutanix intends to roll out a pilot program for an Elevate Program incentive designed to reward select partners for the delivery of consistent, on-time renewal rates with their Nutanix customers.

Channel Impact^®
The program enhancements are intended to help capture market opportunities, provide differentiation, and deliver a better experience for the entire partner ecosystem and customers.

Fivetran Announces Global Partner Reseller and Certification Programs

Fivetran, an Oakland-based company specializing in data integration, has rolled out an update to its partner referral program along with the launch of new partner reseller and certification programs.

“We collaborated with our partners to develop a vastly expanded program that truly rewards them for their business, while providing new sales and support opportunities,” said Alliance VP Logan Welley. “By also adding global system integrators to our partner program, we are better equipped to meet growing enterprise demand around the world.”

The program includes four new partnership tiers from Registered to Elite, with benefits including new financial rewards, a partner advisory council, partner communities, partner marketing support with exclusive sponsorship opportunities, sales engineering support, and technical and sales training with certification packages.

Partners in the new reseller program can also receive rewards for reselling via marketplaces.

Leveraging a cloud-based platform, Fivetran enables data teams to more easily centralize and transform data from hundreds of SaaS and on-prem data sources to support analytics and operational efficiency.

The company previously earned partner of the year awards from Snowflake, Google Cloud and Databricks.

Channel Impact^®
The program is designed to enhance partner enablement, and support Fivetran’s growth ambitions across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions.