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Veeam partners building on wave of fresh customers
Vendor has seen users turn to its technology during the pandemic and is keen to make sure they remain there for the long-term
Veeam has seen its customer base expand during the pandemic, as users reached out for data backup and management tools to help them over the past few months.
The firm’s recent second quarter numbers indicated that the business had grown at a channeling time and the focus is on working with the channel to convert those fresh users into something permanent.
Alex Walsh, manager of channels for the UK and Ireland (UK&I) at Veeam, said there had been a strong demand from Office 365 users for backup tools and its partners had been able to meet that need.
“It’s the largest second quarter we have had in UK&I. We have been trying to make sure we approach the partner and the customer in the right way and we have done a really good job of that,” he said. “O365 has been huge for us, with 89% growth globally and licensing has increased.”
He said it had seen growth across all partner tiers, revealing the strength of the demand from users right across the market.
Walsh said that it was working with the channel to make sure they could keep existing customers content and encourage those that had reached out in the pandemic to build on that choice.
“The channel has done a very good job in engaging those customers correctly and we are all in this together. Customers that have joined us in the past few months will be Veeam customers because of the way we have engaged with them,” he said. “They will stay with us not just because the technology makes sense but because they like the engagement with Veeam and its partners.”
A period of reflection
There is a growing feeling across the industry that customers have moved from a period of reaction to one of reflection, and they are now being much more critical of the technologies they are choosing to use to keep staff connected and operations running.
Walsh agreed that there was a change in approach, “good enough isn’t good enough anymore”. But he said that it had the technology to argue its case and had the partners ready to back that up with high service levels.
Veeam has been supporting partners around digital marketing efforts, aware of the challenges reaching out to fresh customers during lockdown, and Walsh said those efforts were continuing.
He said that the most important thing was to continue to focus on delivering the basics right, including protecting margins and being open with partners.
“If we can continue to do what we do around the basics and keeping clear communication lines open [the partners will benefit],” he said. “We have always wanted to help partners, and the recent situation has just redefined what the help looked like.”
