Nutanix expands partner programme to systems integrators

Nutanix has expanded its Elevate Partner Program to include systems integrators, describing the move as its biggest channel investment to date.

The revised structure adds incentives for referrals, renewals and customer expansion, while increasing support for partner-led services. The aim is to give partners more ways to generate revenue beyond an initial technology sale.

Systems integrators and consulting partners can now join the programme and, where eligible, earn referral rewards for identifying and developing Nutanix opportunities even if they do not complete the final sale. The change reflects the growing role these firms play in IT strategy, migrations, solution integration and services delivery.

The programme now spans seven incentive areas: land, expand, grow, reward, retain, refer and differentiate. These cover rebates on net-new customer transactions, incentives for adding more Nutanix products into existing accounts, benefits tied to year-on-year business growth, rewards for sales and technical staff, incentives for on-time renewals, referral payments and support for services development.

Services focus

A central part of the expansion is broader backing for partner-delivered services through Powered by Nutanix: Verified Services. Eligible partners will be able to build recognised services around migrations, deployment and ongoing customer support.

Partners will also get access to standardised Service Delivery Kits and opportunities to shadow Nutanix experts. This is intended to help them strengthen their technical knowledge and expand their professional services operations.

The programme changes also target areas where Nutanix sees growing customer demand, including enterprise AI, cloud-native applications and databases. Additional incentives are being attached to opportunities involving Nutanix Enterprise AI, Nutanix Database Service and Nutanix Kubernetes Platform, as well as services built around those products.

That gives partners another route to a larger share of customer spending after the original sale. Instead of relying only on product resale margins, they can pursue work linked to deployment, expansion, support and renewals.

Broader partner economics

The revised framework suggests Nutanix is trying to make its channel model more relevant to a wider range of firms, particularly those that influence buying decisions without necessarily acting as the seller of record. By extending referral payments to systems integrators and consultants, it is broadening who can benefit financially from introducing its products into customer accounts.

It is also using the programme to encourage repeat business from existing customers. Incentives tied to expansion and retention give partners a reason to focus on account development and contract renewals, rather than only on winning new customers.

Nutanix linked the opportunity to wider pressures in enterprise infrastructure, with customers dealing with hardware availability issues, infrastructure costs and disruption caused by large-scale technology upgrades.

Against that backdrop, Nutanix said its cloud platform gives partners more options when modernising customer environments. Support for selected external storage configurations, including technologies from Dell, Everpure and NetApp, is intended to let customers retain more of their current infrastructure while still making broader changes.

Nutanix also pointed to Nutanix Cloud Clusters, known as NC2, as another source of partner work. The offering allows supported workloads to run and move between on-premises environments and supported public clouds, which can help when hardware availability or capacity is limited.

Tooling changes

Alongside the programme update, Nutanix is investing in AI-based tools aimed at partner engagement and opportunity identification. One planned addition is Deal Coach, due to be introduced through Nutanix Partner Central later in the fiscal year to support sales-cycle activity.

The company also outlined plans to give approved partners visibility into selected customer-environment health, adoption and lifecycle signals, subject to customer authorisation. That information would allow partners to monitor customer estates more closely and prepare for renewals or follow-on work.

The expansion of Elevate indicates that Nutanix is placing more emphasis on the economics of partner services and influence, not just resale. With systems integrators now included and new rewards attached to referrals, renewals and customer growth, the programme is being reshaped around a broader set of commercial roles in enterprise technology buying.