“It’s not the size but commitment the partner offers in growth,” says NetApp’s Ganesan Arumugam

For Arumugam, he hopes partners will not only open new opportunities for the vendor in 2026 but also understand what NetApp’s priorities and strategies are and align their business model into that.

As NetApp continues to experience strong demand in Asia, partners remain core to ensuring customers get the best from the vendor. Over the years, NetApp has expanded its partner ecosystem in the region, with a strong focus in Southeast Asia.

In a recent interview with CRN Asia, Ganesan Arumugam, Senior Director, Channel Sales & Alliances, APAC at NetApp, shared that the entire APAC region is partner led, and the vendor remains focused on investing on partners in the countries in the region.

“Each and every country, partners are important, and we equally invest in all the countries. When I say equally, not in terms of absolute value, but as a percentage of the business. Obviously, what I invest in Japan will be much more than what I invest in Vietnam, but if I look at it as a percentage of revenue, it will be the same. So, we are equally committed, equally invested into all the countries,” Arumugam said.

While NetApp remains focused on revenue growth this year in the region, its partner ecosystem growth will focus on growth with a few select partners which he referred to as focus partners. These focus partners are in each of the markets NetApp operates in and the vendor will work on how they can go deep in revenue with these partners who are keen to invest in developing their skills with NetApp.

“It's not the size of the partner, we look at the equal commitment from them, how we can grow deep with them, that's where we are looking at the growth coming in from. And the second set is from the coverage part of it, because as organizations grow, we need to acquire the market share. The market share can come from new accounts and new acquisitions. So that's why we are looking at broadening coverage with the new partners who will be. We are trying to leverage our distributors to work with the district managed partners,” explained Arumugam.

Distribution Managed Partners

Arumugam pointed out that NetApp classifies NetApp Managed Partners (NMP) as those that are focused, strong, loyal and long-term partners, where the vender will have its partner team directly working with them including building the plan, go to markets, execution and enablement to ensure they grow with NetApp.

Apart from that, there are also the Distribution Managed Partners (DMP), which are long term new partners to NetApp. They may not be regular transacting partners, but still they bring in the new accounts and the new coverage into the market for that.

“The DMP will act as a kind of extended arm for NetApp. If you look at it, almost all the distributors have a mini NetApp team, or a product team in their chronology. They are measured and focused only on NetApp. So we invest in terms of building technical skills with them. They have a pre-sales team and SEs who are trained and certified as a NetApp trained person, who in turn will train those DMP partners. So today if you look at it, any partner lifecycle, it starts with recruitment. We are making sure that they are enabled, well-versed with our product range, and bring in the opportunity, and close the business. That's the lifecycle engagement we are looking at,” said Arumugam.

Arumugam explained that the distributors bring a lot of value-add in terms of recruitment as they know partners well and have a wide range of products, which include servers, compute networks, software, security, services and such.

“If you look at it, any large distributors, they manage around 6,000 to 8,000 partners. So, they bring in that value piece in terms of who are the right partners, who will be interested in infrastructure, and who want to transact with NetApp. So, they recruit, and their technical team helps in terms of enabling them. And they have their channel sales team, who works with these partners, might have been for other products all these days, now the NetApp also gets added. So, the NetApp product team works with their channel sales team and their sales team to identify the NetApp opportunities. So, they have their model or the sales model in place in terms of engagement. We leverage those,” added Arumugam.

Incentives and investments for partners

Just like all the other vendors, NetApp is also looking to make some changes to its incentive program. However, Arumugam stated that while that has yet to come in, the broader framework will remain the same.

“We want to reward our partners who have invested with us, depending on their level, the Prestige Partner or Preferred or Approved. And the second is the focus solution, where we prioritize this year. These are the solution areas we want to focus on where we see a demand. So, we may give an additional investment to them. And third thing is on the acquisitions, the new net account acquisition. These are the three broad categories for the partners that will remain the same,” he explained.

Arumugam also pointed out that NetApp has added a lot of competencies at the start of the year in line with the market demand.

“We re-sunset some of the competencies and introduced the new competencies around that. I don't see a major change. Apart from some additions will be coming in there,” he added.

Goals in 2026

For Arumugam, he hopes partners will not only open new opportunities for the vendor in 2026 but also understand what NetApp’s priorities and strategies are and align their business model into that.

“Once they see the business, they say profitability comes in. They will start automatically investing into our business, which is happening and we have seen it in the multiple partners who have come back. In fact, some of the partners who are new to us came back and said they would like to work with us by seeing the success of our other partners that are doing it,” Arumugam said.

Put simply, Arumugam believes that NetApp can help partners out in closing and growing their business and growing their profitability.

“It's mutual. I am not saying that only you give me I don't give anything. The second thing for partners is to build their skills and capabilities in our newer solution areas and how they can build the capabilities around that. And the third thing is to continue your commitment and loyalty with us which we can reciprocate. So, everybody will have to pull, and we need the partners to work together hand in hand with that common vision and alignment that this is what we are after and this is how we are enabling the customer on their journey,” he concluded.