Exclusive: “We need to earn our partner business every day,” says Everpure’s Ricardo Moreno

Ricardo Moreno, VP of Global Partner Sales at Everpure on discusses the name change as well as how partners in Asia play an important role as the vendor moves beyond storage.

It’s been more than a month since Pure Storage changed its name to Everpure. While the tech industry is still coming to terms with the storage vendor’s new name, the reality is, the new name is already making its presence as the vendor looks to reshape storage to define the future of data management.

With the new name also comes a new face to drive the relationship the vendor has with its partners in the channel ecosystem. Being a 100% focused channel driven vendor means partners are core to almost everything Everpure does in the industry today. This is exactly what drew Ricardo Moreno to the company to take on the role of VP of Global Partner Sales at Everpure.

Moreno recently made his first trip to Singapore since taking on his new role and CRN Asia has the exclusive opportunity to speak to him to understand more about his plans for the region as well as how the vendor will be focusing on enabling its partner ecosystem to reach their goals too.

Moreno, who has had previous global partner leadership roles, has led ecosystems globally, from building them from scratch to reshaping or evolving the partner ecosystems.

“Whenever I speak to partners, I ask what's important for them, what we're trying to achieve, where are we falling short, what we should do, and such. Life has shown me that partners always show me what I need to do. Not that I do exactly what is said over there, but there's a lot of learning that comes from those conversations, so being out there is the only way to really start to shape that strategy,” Moreno said.

On making his first international stop to Singapore since starting his new role, Moreno explained that Singapore’s dynamic market and its strong adoption of technologies and being a hub for APAC is clearly a good opportunity to meet up and discuss with partners in the region.

“I need to define a strategic model for us as a global company, building on the foundation that already exists. But that model needs to have a global element. We need to have consistency but also need to address local specific flavors and needs. Too often we hear Asia-Pacific grouped up as a single thing, but it's not the case. You can try to put Asian as a thing, but even Asia itself has a lot of common elements. For example, Australia is a completely different reality, while Japan, Korea and India have their unique tech adoption as well. So here's a great place to really have insights on all of these different needs,” Moreno explained.

What follows is the rest of the conversation between Moreno and CRN Asia.

In your conversation with partners in Singapore, how are adopting to the new company name?

We're all still learning with the transition. We remain very successful as a storage company, with tremendous technology, experienced unbelievable growth, and is now a very sizable company. We continue to grow very aggressively. We also know that the technology that we have now and the mindset and the strategy that we have now allows us to go way beyond just storage. To be very clear, storage remains very core to what we do; we love storage, but it really now expands way beyond just that.

We're evolving towards data management. We knew that it was important to send a very strong message to the market about this new phase, and we think by changing the company name, nothing is bigger in terms of your brand than your very name. I think the team did a terrific job on finding a way to signify a change, but it's still very true and honoring our history.

Now, what I'm hearing from the partners is interesting because it is incredibly positive. They like working with us in a really big way, and it's fun because I have zero credit for that, since I just arrived, but I feel proud already to hear how they like us.

So, there were some fundamental changes we did in the partner program prior to my arrival. We started to differentiate partners, fundamentally recognizing the value exchange in a different way. We defined clearly what we see as a desired value for us. The second thing that we did is, we also made important changes to be very focused on a smaller group of partners. There are companies out there that like to have a lot of partners on their ecosystem. That's not what we do. We have a really focused work around a group of partners, and partners have been very positive about this.

Another thing that has been very present is AI. It’s in everybody’s mind, including the partners. I met a couple of fantastic partners who are changing the way that the market behaves and enabling everybody. But they are just like everybody else and are trying to understand how we go about this environment, and a big part of the conversation is, where do we partner together.

Whatever happens in the application layer or in the AI solutions, and I don't think any of us know exactly what's going to be happening in the even mid-term future. However, all this is only possible with proper data management and data readiness, and that's where our position is so powerful.

This change on evolution and expansion towards data management is so critically powerful, and that's what we are seeing from all of the partners. It's exciting to see that type of confirmation from partners is the right one.

How are you ensuring partners are going to remain successful?

It’s all about enablement. It's one of the fundamental activities that we have to do to our partners, and it's part of our job, and we're happy to do it. They're asking, and I'm seeing a combination of enablement as in training, as well as sometimes just guidance and perspective.

We have to work on the problem together. Think about any relationships you have, think about the good ones and the other ones. The good ones, usually that type of dialogue is there, and partners are coming to say, help me think through this.

Now, as we expand, we participate in the market both on positioning technology and product offers; we create new opportunities for partners. Because we are going to adjacencies, natural expansion to where we've been. What this means for them, is also a natural expansion, with the understanding that for some of them, they've been doing this already. They've already been doing elements of data management with other parts of their ecosystem, and now what they're seeing is us now helping them fill that gap.

Not every market is the same at all in Asia. Partners will have different capabilities. And usually, partner capabilities are also aligned with client needs. In the more mature markets, where clients have a higher level of needs, they will have more mature partners. So fortunately, those things typically are very aligned.

Now, I do see the changes, especially with AI as a natural transition for partners. Just like any market transition, training and investment is necessary. You might need to bring new or different type of talents. And the partners I've been talking to are really aware of that and taking the right necessary actions for that.

Everpure have been leaders in storage and now with the new offerings in data management, how is the vendor dealing with the other competitors as well? How are partners also able to make the most of this?

I think we're dealing with competition the same way that we do. We are paying attention to competition, it's important, but we believe very much in our strategy. We believe in this being a very natural expansion to what we've done, and we are really good at doing. And I would say partners are seeing the same way. I would say also because we're now participating in a bigger play. Whatever our market space was, it's a different market space now.

It makes us more relevant to partners because there's more opportunities for them with us. So, I would say it's only allowing us to get bigger and more visible.

We see this as more opportunities to grow, more places where we can participate, and more impact on our clients. For our partners, I think it reinforces some of our very core, very common elements.

First, and this is one of my favorite things here at this company, Everpure is a very partner focused company. 100% of what we do is done with our partners. And as a partner leader, I love it. I've never seen in my career such a commitment to partnerships.

It's who we are. It is not about us trying to convince opartners. That's very powerful. The focusing on partners that really are adding the type of value that we're looking for, and rewarding and recognizing them in a differentiated way, that is only reinforced now.

Some of what changes is, as we expand our offers, there is also an expansion on the expectations and what are the activities that partners need to do. As we go more into data management, there are certain levels of capabilities that they've got to have. That will make us expect partners to have those capabilities. As I said, in some cases, they've been there already. In other cases, they're not, but we're going to go together on that journey.

There's so much innovation in this market here. There is an ability to deal with complexity for so many reasons. People here are very capable and very resilient, I would say. We're seeing partners ready to embrace that in a pretty great way.

With that said, what do you hope from partners in the region?

We depend on our partners very much. And particularly because of the dependency, and we count on them so much. I expect commitment. I expect leadership in terms of helping the market know where to go. And in many ways, what I'm seeing this very week, when they share with me what needs to happen, they are leading the way in so many ways.

We do expect readiness, investment, and all of those things. And we expect growth. In many ways, everything I just said that we expect, we also offer those things. As in, we offer growth as a potential opportunity, of course. We help them with enablement. We are very committed to our partners and to specific partnerships.

And what is your message to partners?

I could talk about this one for two hours, so I'll control myself here. But I'll say a few things are very key in terms of the message. The first one, all of those things we expect, sure. But it's very clear to me, and it has been that we need to earn our partner business every day. Every day that they are working with us, that they're investing on us, that they are choosing to bring us to their clients, or that they're bringing us to their clients, they are making choices.

And we need to earn that business every day. It never stops. Again, we have a very strong model and a very strong ecosystem. But we need to make sure that we're always on top of that and taking care of them and investing in them.

The second element of the message is we remain incredibly committed to partnerships. I'm committed. But as I said, it's not just me. It's Everpure as a company all around, across all of the leadership team. Everybody is very committed to partners. So I'm right now in Singapore and the whole reason for that is really to be meeting partners and learning from them.

And lastly, I want to hear from partners. I want to work with them. Naturally, I want to meet my team as well. And so, I'm incredibly grateful to them. We are growing. We are impacting things. We're shaping for the future in a terrific way. And we want partners with us.