IBM Redesigns PartnerWorld Program for the Cognitive Era

Channel program to help drive strategic transformation for IBM Business Partners

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Feb 16, 2016, 12:00 ET

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At the PartnerWorld Leadership Conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today debuted a newly redesigned IBM PartnerWorld program and digital experience that expands on its commitment to help IBM Business Partners deliver higher value to businesses and organizations in the cloud and cognitive era.

The redesigned IBM PartnerWorld program aims to provide Business Partners with a roadmap for driving mutual business growth in the cognitive area with education tailored toward cognitive solutions that IBM and Business Partners can sell. It is also designed to accelerate skills development they need to deliver value to clients. Additionally, it recognizes and rewards Business Partners with more predictable performance incentives.

As part of the redesign, IBM is also making a significant investment with new Business Partners, introducing a Skill Pack offering with education, support offerings, as well as a test voucher to aid in accelerating their time to market. Additionally, new competencies will be offered to Business Partners to support their transition to growth areas with increased opportunities.

"Digital business combined with digital intelligence is fundamentally changing companies, professions and industries," said Marc Dupaquier, General Manager, IBM Global Business Partners. "IBM is accelerating our transformation by helping Business Partners capture emerging business models, build deeper expertise and at the same time, broaden our reach to attract new Business Partners."

A newly redesigned PartnerWorld program to help deliver higher value solutions

The PartnerWorld program now includes refined roadmaps designed to help build deeper expertise, offer guidance for building new capabilities in strategic growth areas, including cloud and cognitive computing, and helping to increase revenue opportunities for Business Partners. Key components of the program include:

New competencies that offer a simplified and integrated approach to recognizing and rewarding demonstrated Business Partner expertise around products, solutions and industries, including strategic growth areas such as cognitive computing, cloud, commerce, Watson, Internet of Things, analytics, mobile, social and security.
A new set of program membership levels that become effective in early 2017 and include Registered, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The new Platinum level will recognize and reward Business Partners for their investment in achieving high levels of competencies and sales success.
New Business Partner marks that leverage a redesigned visual expression and showcase a Business Partner's relationship with IBM and their competencies. These can be used by Business Partners on their company website, on email signatures and other marketing collateral.
Comprehensive benefits aligned with deeper skills, training, marketing, sales, support offerings and other opportunities that build visibility for Business Partner solutions.
Introducing "Skill Pack," a new offering designed to help new Business Partners accelerate time to revenue that includes resources to grow skills, build prototypes on IBM Cloud and connect with the IBM ecosystem

Accelerating growth with new digital programs

In addition to launching the redesigned PartnerWorld program, IBM is also expanding a number of benefits for partners. These include:

A newly designed PartnerWorld University portal, web-based learning management system delivering education to Business Partners to help build sales and technical skills, with a broader repository of courses to allow them to gain new IBM certifications. The enhanced portal includes a personalized user experience that notifies users when a new course is available that meets their interest, ability to start where they left off, statistics on learning, and a course progress tracker.
Added Digital Marketing Workshops across the globe, designed to enable Business Partners to include digital and social tactics in their campaigns, thus helping to increase their ability to attract new clients and buyers. The workshops include practice with IBM Digital Content Marketing (DCM), an integrated suite of marketing tools and content that enables Business Partners to execute integrated digital marketing campaigns across the web, email and social media.
An expansion of IBM's Business Transformation Initiative (BTI) workshop offering to reach significantly more Business Partners across the globe who are looking to transition their business models to higher value solutions and "as a service" delivery.
New, limited time opportunity for Business Partners to acquire, at an attractive price, developerWorks Premium a subscription service that provides developers of all levels with resources to help grow their skills, connect with the IBM ecosystem and build next-generation applications on IBM Cloud.

For more details on the IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference, please visit the 2016 online media kit or follow # #IBMPWLC on Twitter.

For information about the IBM PartnerWorld program and portal, visit here.

Media Contact

Dayna Fried
IBM Media Relations
925-493-9020
[email protected]

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SOURCE IBM