HPE’s New Aruba Networking Global Sales Offensive: What Partners Need To Know

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Tuesday said it is combining the Aruba channel networking team into the HPE global sales organization effective Nov. 1 in a move that paves the way for an all-out edge-to-cloud global networking sales offensive.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Simon Ewington said the integration of the Aruba channel networking team into the global sales organization effective Nov. 1 is a “massive opportunity” to simplify and deliver a better partner experience.

“This is a massive opportunity to turbocharge the partner business that we do with them and leverage the opportunity we have across AI by leveraging our compute, storage and networking portfolio, which I think is unique in the industry,” said Ewington in an interview with CRN. “Most importantly is demonstrating that we continue to have partnering in our DNA and continue to listen to the feedback from our partners and how we can drive an optimal experience for partners. I think it is a great example of us listening to what partners are asking for in terms of a simplified experience working with them across the complete portfolio.”

Under the new go-to-market model, partners will no longer be forced to go to two separate organizations for networking price quotes or channel issues.

In fact, Ewington said, the new structure provides a single partner business manager that “will own” the partner relationship with a unified go-to-market model with the full HPE portfolio, said Ewington.

“We are going to measure more of the organization on helping partners to be successful across the full portfolio,” said Ewington.

In a blog post, Ewington and Alain Carpentier, Aruba senior vice president of worldwide sales, said the changes “enable HPE to deliver a seamless experience to all its channel partners and simplify the engagement experience across our broad edge-to-cloud portfolio without losing the specialized focus on networking.”

HPE Will Continue To Provide A Specialized Networking Sales Force Model For Partners

The integration of the HPE Aruba channel networking team into the HPE global sales organization will maintain the global sales specialization model that exists with HPE compute and HPE storage specialists in the field helping partners close deals, said Ewington.

“We’re maintaining the specialization across the complete portfolio, across compute and storage, which we put in place 12 months ago, and the networking specialization, which has existed since we acquired Aruba Networks in 2016,” said Ewington.

“This integration takes into consideration HPE’s broader go-to-market strategy that includes retaining our specialist sellers while maintaining multi-BU [business unit] solution-focused conversations with partners and customers,” said Ewington in a blog post. “We need both specialization and solution-selling skills to win in the market.”

Phil Soper To Oversee The North America Channel Aruba Sales Effort

Under the new go-to-market model, HPE North America Head of Channel Sales Phil Soper will oversee all of the channel business, including the HPE Aruba Networking business.

“Phil will be accountable for all of the partner business in North America, the full HPE portfolio,” said Ewington.

Aruba Vice President of Channel Sales Jim Harold will now report to Soper, said Ewington.

Worldwide Aruba Channel Chief Lene Skov Joins The HPE Global Channel ANd Partner Ecosystem Team

The new global go-to-market model puts HPE Aruba Worldwide Channel Chief Lene Skov into the HPE Global Channel and Partner Ecosystem reporting to Ewington.

“We are now essentially going to integrate Lene as the worldwide Aruba networking channel lead into my organization and the rest of her organization will follow Lene,” he said. “So really it’s an alignment creating one integrated, simplified experience for our partners. I think the partner community will greatly benefit.”

Skov previously reported to Carpentier.

An Improved ‘Optimized’ Partner Experience With No Cutbacks In Wake Of Changes

HPE is focused squarely on improving the partner experience with the global go-to-market model and is not implementing any cutbacks as part of the changes, said Ewington (pictured).

“This is about driving an optimized, improved experience for our partners, it is not about cost optimization,” said Ewington. “Previously we had a partner general business manager, which we still have today and will still have in Fiscal Year 2025. Underneath some of those for our large partners, we had storage specialists, compute specialists and we already had networking specialists it is just their reporting line was into a different organization. We are just pulling that all together.”

Ewington stressed that the HPE Aruba networking specialization remains intact. “That HPE Aruba networking specialization absolutely stays and is being reinforced as we look to put in place this new simplified, integrated experience for partners,” he said.

Partners now have the ability to engage with “one organization, one overall PBM [partner business manager] and one overall channel leader in the [geography], which was not the case before,” said Ewington.

HPE’s Partner Ready Vantage Advantage

The integration of the Aruba channel networking team into the HPE global sales organization comes with HPE moving partners into its HPE Partner Ready Vantage ecosystem program.

The Partner Ready Vantage program features tracks for HPE and HPE Aruba Networking based on a “common blueprint designed to drive a consistent partner experience with the flexibility to address differences across the portfolio,” said Ewington and Carpentier in a blog post.

More than 2,000 partners have enrolled in Partner Ready Vantage, which was launched in November 2023, with an emphasis on driving partner services sales growth.

“Partner Ready Vantage does give an advantage [to partners],” said Ewington. “The approach we took some time ago was recognizing that what partners are interested in is developing their own services practices. They are interested in their own margin-rich services capabilities, and we recognize as a company that has partnering in their DNA that we wanted to help those partners develop those service practices by opening up our treasure chest of tools and methodologies faster and then attach their own margin-rich services.”

Recruiting Cisco And Security-Focused Partners For A New Era of AI Growth

HPE is recruiting Cisco partners and security-focused partners as it aims to drive a new era of AI networking and security growth for the channel, said Carpentier.

“Are we interested in Cisco partners? Yes,” said Carpentier. “Are we interested in security partners? Yes, because we see convergence of the networking industry between the network and the security side. So we are not only interested in Cisco partners, but we are also interested in Fortinet and Palo Alto [Networks] and Zscaler partners as well. We want to bring those partners into the new HPE ecosystem and we want to simplify the experience. That’s our ultimate objective because at the end of the day if we do that we will be able to take market share not only from Cisco but also on the security side.”

Carpentier said HPE’s impending $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, which is expected to be completed later this year or early next, is a game-changer for partners.

“Everybody has a lot of expectations, especially in AI domain,” said Carpentier. “But I think we are building the foundation of a new wave of growth, which will be around AI and security. That will be the foundation. And for that, we need partners.”