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Rackspace ramping up channel business
The cloud player has been looking to ramp up its channel over the course of this year and those efforts are continuing
Rackspace has been on a mission this year to grow its channel business and it continues to hunt for partners as it gears up for the fourth quarter.
The cloud player is in a position to provide partners with a wide number of options to take out to customer, across public, private and hybrid cloud environments, and as a result has seen its base increase.
The firm is reaching out to those traditional VARs looking to take steps into the cloud as well as providing options for those looking to add more options for their customers looking at a multi-cloud strategy.
John Coulston, Director of Partners & Alliances, Rackspace, EMEA, said that it was building the channel organization and was investing in that operation in a way it had not done so in the past.
Added to the support Rackspace can offer Coulston said that it had a wide portfolio and was providing a solid partner programme that provided training and education to get more resellers comfortable offering cloud services.
Efforts to expand channel numbers started at the turn of the year and eight months in the firm is still looking for more opportunities to strike up relationships.
“We are definitely looking for more partners and have a significant growth target for our channel,” he added “We have pretty big aspirations in the channel space.”
One of the areas that Coulston is keen to promote is the enablement and co-selling support it provides to make the sales process easier for the partner.
“It is about having the right engagement with partners and also being flexible so that we are able to meet the demands of customers and the partner requirements,” he said.
The firm is also encouraging greater levels of collaboration among partners as it looks to ensure that no opportunities are missed.
“There is constant evolution and the whole idea of partnering is evolving,” he added that the channel could expect to see it go into 2019 being more focused on working with the right partners. “The next 12-18 months we will be highly targeted. We have had a very broad brush in the past but that has not always been successful”.
