BMC Software, Inc. has been leveraging partners for years to sell its digitally-transformative enterprise software solutions, but the company is now looking to expand its presence in the channel even further, according to executives at BMC Day in Toronto on June 5.
In particular, Canadian country leader Sean Hinton tells CDN, BMC wants to develop more specific, angled partnerships that will help it move into a variety of different sectors.
“I’ve been with BMC for seven years in the Canadian marketplace and we’ve always had great partners that can help us promote our solutions,” he explains. “What we’re trying to do now is go after specific solution providers that focus on or have expertise in certain areas.”
He points to how different a conversation about IT is with a company’s security leadership team compared to one with its operations team, and says that approaching the channel from different angles is the best option going forward.
“We believe we have some great solutions for customers looking for security products or services, for example, but since BMC has generally taken an IT operations approach versus a security approach, it may be more difficult for us to reach those customers on our own,” Hinton continues. “We’ve always been partner-friendly, and having more diversity in our partnerships can really create more opportunities for us.”
He says that with the evolution of BMC products, this partner diversity is necessary because selling, implementing and managing such products involves “different skill sets.”
“These partners have evolved their practice to be able to focus on specific skills, and we need them to grow and scale up faster. I’m not going to invest more in our sales team because I don’t think that’s the right approach,” Hinton adds.
And this isn’t just happening in Canada – BMC is looking for “the right partners to invest in and bring on board” all across the globe. And with the company having locations in 30 countries, this presents a ripe opportunity for channel partners and vendors globally.
Hinton also expresses his enthusiasm about the direction the company is moving in, saying that after meeting with various partners over the last few weeks, what products BMC has on the table right now are “right on track” with the issues customers need solved.
“If we look at BMC as a whole, we’re experiencing 13 quarters of consecutive growth, which is pretty abnormal for a software company. In the Canadian market specifically, we saw significant growth for several product lines last year and it just makes me even more excited to be leading this Canadian team,” he concludes.
