Vast Data channel boss braced for busy second half
The recently installed worldwide channel boss at the storage company has got a couple of months under his belt ahead of the business making major announcements next month
It’s been two and a half months since Gregg Machon stepped into the global channel role at Vast Data, and he’s now looking to build and support the storage player’s partner base.
The vendor has some announcements planned for next month that should shape the solutions the channel is talking about for the rest of the year, but even before those plans are revealed, Machon has been evaluating the state of the firm’s indirect business.
“At this point, there are clearly some areas I can help influence,” he said. “I think I can provide a bit of a maturity: to the way we go to market; the way we recruit and identify the ideal partners we want working with the programme offerings; and the benefits we can offer to those partners, to really incentivise them and ... in many cases, truly create new revenue streams inside of their organisations.”
Examples of where the firm could work with its channel include encouraging those selling their data protection and restoration options and adding more artificial intelligence. The vendor also wants to emphasise the alliances it has with the likes of Nvidia.
“I’m very pleased right now,” said Machon. “I’m eager to start putting in place some of the things I think at this point we want to do.
“I try not to make too many decisions in the first, say, 90 days of coming aboard to a new organisation, because I think it gets more important for me to learn [about] the opportunities and the challenges, but I’m nearing a point where I’d like to start implementing some of the things I think we can do.”
One of the expected consequences of the announcements coming next month is that Vast will find the phone ringing, with more resellers interested in getting involved with the business as the vendor can now provide a wider solution.
Further channel expansion
Machon said the door is open to further channel expansion, but that the nature of the solution tended to limit the numbers.
“Our model is very focused,” he said. “We are not in a heavy channel recruitment phase. That’s really just because the partners that we serve tend to be very distinct organisations. They are large organisations that have a very large amount of unstructured data, typically. We’re talking about a petabyte more of unstructured data, which immediately eliminates a lot of customers, as well as partners that serve some of the smaller partners.
“We’re very interested in talking with any organisation that is doing something interesting with a lot of data,” said Machon.
He added that the requirement for a storage solution that could help customers restore quickly after a data breach was also resonating with both users and partners.
“Our recovery story is not talking about weeks, it’s talking about, [at] maximum, days – if not hours – to help you get back on your feet and recover,” said Machon.
“We hold those conversations every single day, all day long. That is absolutely resonating with the people in charge of the crown jewels of their organisation, and they need to make sure their own organisations and customers are not impacted by a data security breach or ransomware event.”
