HP Empowers Channel Partners For The AI Era

HP Amplify AI is a customizable program designed to boost partner capabilities in achieving positive AI outcomes offering AI guidance, tools, resources, training, and certification.

AI spending continues in 2024 with businesses hoping to be one step ahead of their competitors in the industry. The promises of GenAI remain a key driver for business investments and look most likely to continue in 2025 and beyond.

According to a report by IDC, global spending on AI is expected to more than double by 2028, reaching US$632 billion. While the spending will be focused on AI infrastructure, with both hardware and software needing upgrades, businesses will also need to ensure they have the right skillsets to drive their GenAI plans.

As businesses will want to be sure they are making the right investments for GenAI, this creates a huge opportunity for tech vendors and partners to showcase their skills and capabilities in helping businesses achieve success in their GenAI journey.

For HP, the focus will be on preparing and supporting its partners in their increasingly AI-centric advisory role to customers. To achieve this, HP launched HP Amplify AI, a persona-based program tailored to enhance partners’ unique capabilities and drive AI outcomes. The new program will include HP Amplify AI HUB, a centralized resource for AI training, certification, and tools, offering role-based opportunities to help partners sell AI devices and solutions more effectively.

Interestingly, HP had already anticipated the channel landscape to change even before the GenAI hype. Gary Hang, Director, Head of Channels in Channels, Retails and Omni Sales for Greater Asia at HP highlighted that traditional distributors would be challenged because of renewed customer expectations. He explained that customers don’t just want a product today, but they want a solution that can solve their IT needs to deliver business outcomes.

“We introduced the Amplify program in 2020. We had to convince channel partners to move from a traditional performance base to three different pillars. While, we still have a performance-focused pillar, which is core for any partner, the other two pillars are collaboration and capabilities,” said Hang.

To be a HP Amplify partner, Hang explained that it’s not only about numbers but also how partners can collaborate with HP and enhance their capabilities. There are three tiers of Amplify partners with Synergy being the lower tier, followed by Power and Power Eliter.

“To be a Power and Power Elite partner, you need to meet all three pillars. And to achieve this, partners need to submit data to HP which we provide insights in return via the Amplify Data Insight Program. We will augment your data with third party data to give predictive and prescriptive insights,” said Hang.

To improve capabilities, Hang mentioned that HP has built specialized partners in cybersecurity, workstation and such. When HP acquired Poly, it also became part of the Amplify program for partners.

“We expect the program to continue to evolve. Now, we use it to incubate new partners that are using AI. The opportunity is there for AI. While AI spending worldwide will be around US$632 billion by 2028, the immediate opportunities we see in GenAI will be caused by the end of life of Windows 10 as businesses will be focused on replacing devices,” explained Hang.

Microsoft will be ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025. This includes a stop in providing security updates, technical support, and free software updates for Windows 10. While Microsoft has stated that cybersecurity updates will be available for a fee, the end-of-life support is expected to drive businesses to replace their old devices with newer ones that have AI capabilities built into them.

Earlier this year, HP introduced the industry’s largest portfolio of AI PCs, featuring new HP Elite PCs, the world’s most advanced business laptops for collaboration, and Z by HP mobile workstations to unlock new levels of productivity and creativity.

The Amplify AI Program

According to Hang, while HP’s Amplify program is broad, it will continue to evolve, and the company is aimed at working with partners that focus on software and key verticals. For example, a local healthcare agency is building AI solutions for the healthcare industry which provides huge opportunities for developers and ISVs to develop use cases.

This is where Hang stated that HP wants to collaborate with ISVs and channel partners. He explained that the Amplify program for retail and distribution are also available in the same way.

“On top of this, many companies are focusing on ESG. In HP, we introduced Amplify Impact, which has been quite successful after being launched in many countries in greater Aisa. We help partners to do assessments on organizations to understand how it performs, like initiatives and such. We even train on knowledge of sustainability so that as a HP partner, they know sustainability benefits to share in a pitch,” added Hang.

In May this year, HP launched the AI Masterclass. The program offers tailored role-based online training for sales representatives, account managers and technical consultants. Over the past six months, more than 12,000 users have enrolled in the AI MasterClass, surpassing expectations. HP has also rolled out refreshed content available in new languages allowing users globally to augment their expertise and capabilities to stay ahead in the rapidly changing AI landscape.

“The intent is to educate partners on AI. We have live use cases in the training. It’s a four-hour training on each module and users enrolled will need to do a test (online certification) which is not easy. However, this is part of the education,” said Hang.

Hang also pointed out that the HP AI portfolio is shared. There is the commercial and consumer portfolio as well as in video conferencing solutions with the opportunity in AI covering both enterprise and SMBs, who can also use AI-enabled devices.

“The beauty of our partners vs competitors is that our partners have a breath of portfolios. If you look at AI-enabled devices, we don’t just do PCs. For example, we have AI enabled Printers. We have Poly as a communication tool and also a services portfolio. From this perspective, we give customers a broad end to end device differentiation. However, the choice goes down to the customer,” said Hang.

The Right Partner

As the HP Amplify program drives partner development through a simplified global structure, rewarding performance, collaboration, and capabilities, HP has expanded the HP Business Partner Program globally by taking on a larger community of non-HP Amplify partners and boosting SMB growth via Distributors.

This is where the HP Business Partner Program offers partner accreditation, brand visibility, and streamlined processes for superior customer experiences. Participants will benefit from quick onboarding, and a consistent global digital experience with instant pricing, product details, training materials, and sales and marketing resources.

For Hang, it's all about finding the right partner profile to incubate all these programs. For example, Hang highlighted ICT Zone in Malayisa, a managed service provider that has been using proactive insight telemetric by HP to transform their offering. Not only have they moved towards a more proactive and predictive service model, but they have also improved the cost of doing business and are focusing on more high value opportunities.

“Resellers that have the right profile and see the benefits will see the potential. We just need to incubate and identify them. It’s not for everybody but whoever is specialized enough will see the benefit. For specialized partners, they need to invest in engineers, and they need to get certified and requalify yearly. You need to meet certain criteria to be qualified to in the program,” said Hang.

Hang also believes that the growth for HP and its partners will come from Windows 11 in the first half of 2025 and will also be the main driver for revenue growth. GenAI growth will depend on sector and verticals as they continue to their digital expansion plans.

Moreover, Hang mentioned that HP is also focused on educating partners to pitch to government agencies. He mentioned that in Singapore, while HP has direct contact with the government, they still need to collaborate with partners in this. Also, partnering with key system integrators in countries is critical because they provide end to end solutions.

“We want to continue to grow. As a company, we continue to innovate our portfolio of products to be leaders in what we do, from AI innovation to partnering with different vendors to come up with new products. All these need to benefit customers and create opportunities for them. We will continue to drive that. Asia is still the market where the growth comes from, especially from the supply chain perspective. We must evolve to adjust our strategies based on global market dynamics,” Hang concluded.