HPE Pointnext Launches Renewal As A Service Program For Partners

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Pointnext has launched an innovative Renewal as a Service (RaaS) program aimed at driving more services renewals with upsell opportunities for partners.

The new renewal as a service program provides partners and distributors with HPE Pointnext resources to facilitate the 80 percent of support services for under $25,000 that go unrenewed in the channel. That's because partners struggle with dedicating the resources to the smaller renewal opportunities.

HPE estimates that those lost renewal opportunities amount to more than $100 million.

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Under the RaaS program, HPE Pointnext provides resources for partners to facilitate and drive renewal orders with the partner maintaining account control and taking control of any leads generated from the program.

The partner receives the sales margin for the renewal but the RaaS team becomes the preferred services provider for the services renewed.

Mark Romanowski, executive vice president for Agilant Solutions Inc., the global digital transformation specialist headquartered in Port Washington, N.Y., said the new revenue share opportunity with RaaS is a "win-win" for HPE and its partners. "It's a novel idea that is working very, very well for us and our customers," he said.

Agilant, which piloted the RaaS program, is using new offering to cover parts of the country where it does not have on site specialists.

Among the broad range of HPE services that Pointnext is picking up for Agilant are HPE Foundation Care for offerings like HPE ProLiant server and HPE ProActive Care on systems like HPE ProLiant and BladeSystems."This gives us coverage in geographies where we are not providing our own support," said Romanowski.

Romanoswki praised HPE for giving partners complete account control under the RaaS model. "If HPE finds additional opportunities either additional services or hardware that gets passed to us," he said.

Michael Goldstein, CEO of LAN Infotech, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., solution provider, said the new program makes it easier for partners to drive services renewals. "I give HPE credit for going after what is lost revenue for partners and HPE," he said.

Goldstein said he sees the program improving customer satisfaction particularly in the case of customers who may be unaware that their services contract has expired.

"There is nothing worse than having a customer who thinks they have a services contract and then they find out it has expired," said Goldstein. "No one wants to be the bearer of bad news in a case like that. HPE has all the warranty data and they are willing to put the sales resources on this. I think it's a great program. Sometimes warranties are taken for granted and are just not understood by the customer."