We interviewed Juan Carlos Bonilla, who serves as Channel and Alliances Manager for Latin America and is part of a new team formed this year by Commvault (https://www.commvault.com/about-us). In this way, the company seeks to accelerate growth in the Spanish-speaking Latin American region by working closely with technology partners, distributors and their respective channels.
“We also work with the sales forces of our technology partners so that they can rely on our sales team in a synergistic way. It is also very interesting that distributors such as Adistec have a relationship with them to generate a comprehensive offer for both business partners and customers,” explained the executive.
Bonilla stressed that the main focus today is to empower the different business partners with innovative products, SaaS offerings, specialized training and pre-sales tools that demonstrate the company’s differentiators. “Adistec currently plays a key role for us because it is starting up the business, not only by increasing our reach but also because of the value profile of its partners,” he said.
Commvault’s main objective with this strategic alliance is for Adistec to help them achieve a wider reach: “The qualitative goal is to be closer to the channels, to the customers, also closer to these technological alliances, and that we can identify where we can help more resellers to become our partners and that they can add value,” he explained.
“Adistec should be pulling in between 25% of our distribution sales this year.”
Bonilla explained that Commvault’s Latin America region is divided into 3 zones: Mexico, NOLA and SOLA, and that the goal is to have 10 focus partners in each one of them – together with Adistec – “that are very good, that transact with us every quarter and have good access to relevant accounts in the market that can be a reference and obviously that this translates into sales”.
Launching tour in the region
With this goal in mind, Adistec and Commvault have already started a launching tour of the alliance that will cover several places, which already had its first presentation in Mexico last May 24, and will continue with this schedule:
Argentina: June 8
Colombia: June 9
Chile: June 16
Central America: June 21
Caribbean: June 23
“We have a whole onboarding program to help them get on board in a very effective, clear and simple way, and a channel program that has been receiving excellent ratings from specialized media for 10 consecutive years,” the representative said.
They also have an opportunity registration program through the Commvault portal. “An additional 10% discount can be associated to the opportunity that the business partner is taking. There are very large clients that sometimes need to have two or three partners, but typically the registration is per project and is valid for 180 days with the possibility of extending it according to certain special circumstances”, he added.
The executive also explained that Commvault offers different ways to provide customer demonstrations, starting with the videos they have available on youtube, you can also schedule a customer support with one of the three trained pre-sales that they have in the region; and finally through Adistec, “Partners also have access to NFR licenses that allow them to create controlled environments to test for customers,” he said. “If they need to do a very specific demo, we can also provide trial licenses so they can do a test of concept of how a product is already working in the customer’s infrastructure.”
Training
He also assured that the enablement is very simple, with a very efficient e-learning system with free training. “We have a basic track that they start with, which is data protection, which gives them the control over our entire CommCell Management platform, the single source of administration for all the functionalities we have, which functions as a plugin where the client or partner activates the ones they want to have active and turns off the others,” he explained. “Because it’s a single product, it’s very easy for a channel administrator or engineer to get familiar quickly,” he asserted.
As for the sales and pre-sales certifications, the first part for architects and what refers to certification courses require – from the pandemic onwards – to fulfill prerequisites in e-learning and then move on to 2-day hands-on training per specialization which, he assured, “are very economical”.
Licensing model
In addition to this focus on training, Bonilla promised that they will support channels with demand generation activities so that they can have “early wins”. “Our basic initial ticket is around US$10,000 or US$12,000, which for an SME company with a lot of critical information is somewhat affordable, as they would be paying around US$1,000 per month. We have both perpetual license and subscription formats, where they pay the annual fee and have maintenance and access to new versions included,” he explained.
“Commvault is truly a technological benchmark for data management; it’s a very complete offering.”
Bonilla also anticipated that in July Commvault will launch Metallic Cloud Storage Service, a new integrated cloud storage SaaS solution that facilitates the digital transformation of IT organizations, cost savings, risk reduction and allows them to scale without limits, which will also be distributed through Adistec. “It will be available first for Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and then little by little we will be adding new territories, such as Peru, where we already have projects, and definitely Argentina, which is also a very important place in Latin America,” he said.
“Commvault is a totally customer-focused company with the goal that we can really have long-term relationships.”
Our mission is to free people to do incredible things with data. We have a concept that we call Intelligent Data Services, a platform that allows the client, in addition to protecting their data, to grow in a way that has a development journey so that they can comply, for example, with regulatory issues, and can capitalize on the information that data has, through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning engines that help them to explore the growth of critical information,” said Bonilla.
“We are coming off a year of excellent growth. Commvault billed approximately $770 million last year and that’s shaping us up to be hitting the $1 billion goal, perhaps in the next 24 months.”
He concluded: “The idea is to have very competent partners who can help us to fulfill this promise of helping customers to protect their information so that this information becomes a very well-capitalized asset. The growth will be through Adistec and the channels”.
