HP Enters ‘New World’ With Debut Of Amplify Partner Program

The HP Amplify program features a new compensation structure and a greater focus on services and data sharing with partners.

HP Inc.’s overhauled channel partner program, HP Amplify, went live Monday with nearly all existing commercial partners already registered, the company said.

The PC and printer giant first unveiled details about the Amplify program in July, with the goal of giving solution providers plenty of time to digest the many changes in the program before it debuted.

[Related: HP Chief Commercial Officer: COVID-19 Crisis Has Led To A ‘More Pronounced Interest In Services’]

With HP Amplify up and running, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company reported Monday that 99 percent of commercial partners are registered.

The Amplify program features a revamped compensation structure and a bigger focus on rewarding partners that can offer services, collaborate around data and bring a strong digital presence.

Amplify focuses on compensating partners for more than just sales volumes while bringing a new emphasis on data sharing, as customers increasingly look to interact digitally—a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Top HP partners who’ve spoken with CRN have applauded the moves as a way to enable a more modern, data-driven approach to selling—such as Harry Zarek, president and CEO of Richmond Hill, Ontario-based Compugen, No. 51 on the CRN Solution Provider 500.

“The HP Amplify program recognizes the critical role partners play in delivering essential services to businesses and communities. These services are recognized in the performance metrics,” Zarek said Monday in an email to CRN. “Unique to this program is our ability to provide customer data back to HP. We will benefit from better understanding customer intent and preference. The goal is to help guide our efforts in strengthening customer engagement. It’s totally collaborative.”

Ultimately, Zarek said in a previous interview with CRN, “this is a quantum jump into what our new world is looking like.”

The Amplify program brings a deeper focus on enabling increased delivery of services such as Device as a Service and managed print services. For instance, service delivery capability is one of the new performance indicators used to measure rewards in the Amplify program.

Sales volume and goals are still part of the compensation structure under Amplify but so are a number of other performance indicators, according to HP.

Those include presales indicators, such as deal registration volume, sales conversion rates and pre-sales support utilization; indicators at the point of transaction including average sales volume and average revenue per account; and post-sales metrics such as time to delivery, account retention, account expansion and customer satisfaction.

Andy Jones, CEO of Cleveland-based MCPc, No. 85 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, has described the Amplify program structure as the “next evolution” for HP and its channel partners.

In recent years, HP has “done a good job overall of executing on their vision. This overhaul of their legacy channels program to better align with that vision is a timely decision,” Jones said in a previous interview with CRN. “They’ve got their house in order—now it’s time to get the channel programs house in order.”

HP replaces all prior tiers and programs with a new two-tier system in the Amplify program.

The base Synergy tier in the program is meant for most partners and includes standard benefits, while the upper Power tier requires a greater amount of investment from partners, HP has said. The Power track also comes with more investment from HP including with enhanced incentives, support and data.

There’s also one sub-tier, the Power Services track, which enables partners to participate in managed services delivery, and comes with specialized support and resources from HP.

Data sharing is another one of the hallmarks of the new program. HP is asking partners to opt in to share data such as customer purchasing behavior, online sales mix and inventory levels.

The data, which is subject to privacy and security measures, will be used to help jointly drive improved outcomes with customers, HP said.

With the data-sharing initiative with partners, “we’re making sure that they understand that this is a partnership,” said Christoph Schell, chief commercial officer at HP, in an interview with CRN in September.

“We need to own the trust of our customers for them to opt in, but we also obviously need to own the trust of our partners that we are not going to use the data to, for example, go direct,” Schell said. “We want to continue to have a partner-led engagement.”

The launch of the Amplify program comes one year into the tenure of members of the senior leadership team at HP, including Enrique Lores as CEO and Schell as chief commercial officer. The two executives took their current roles on Nov. 1 of last year, at a time when HP also launched its new commercial organization led by Schell.