Red Hat has announced a transformation in the way they work with their global partners to make it simpler, with more options and flexibility. As part of this transformation, Red Hat is modernizing its partner program, incorporating enhanced tools to maximize collaboration and providing easier access to technology, training, and important resources.
According to IDC predictions, 70% of providers will design an ecosystem strategy based on a co-led approach with their partners by 2025. To achieve this, manufacturers must be inherently aligned with their partners to provide joint solutions, services, and the flexibility increasingly demanded in the IT industry. In this sense, Red Hat is adapting its collaboration model and Partner Program to provide greater levels of transparency and consistency for its entire ecosystem, always keeping the customer and their business objectives as the core of the program.
As a modular partner program, partners will have more options and flexibility in choosing how to work with Red Hat to better align with their own business strategies and the needs of their customers. These new improvements in Red Hat’s partner collaboration model will help optimize the partner experience and foster ecosystem co-creation that will expand partners’ capabilities to better serve customers.
Red Hat is also introducing the Red Hat Partner Practice Accelerator Program, which focuses on identifying, enabling, validating, and incentivizing partners within the commercial segment, including mid-market and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With this program, Red Hat is empowering partners to lead the entire lifecycle of customers within this segment while providing differentiated and impactful business results using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift. The Red Hat Partner Practice Accelerator Program is composed of a select group of partners who have demonstrated advanced technical expertise and proven business practices by obtaining Red Hat professional services credentials and certifications related to automation and application development, positioning them as trusted experts capable of designing, implementing, and configuring tailored solutions for these customers.
As experts in automation and application modernization, certified service partners in the Red Hat Partner Practice Accelerator Program can help envision, shape, and execute digital transformation roadmaps for customers, regardless of their complexity. To do this, these select partners will have extensive access to professional service resources and opportunities to improve their profitability, differentiate themselves in the market, and drive customer success using Red Hat technologies.
To support its new collaboration model, Red Hat is investing in making open-source resources, expertise, and solutions more accessible to partners to help them operate more agilely with customers. In addition to ongoing improvements in partner certification and credentialing pathways in the Red Hat Partner Training Portal, and increased visibility of jointly created solutions in the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog, Red Hat is offering partners a platform for on-demand product demonstrations, including step-by-step instructions and customer conversation topics.
The Red Hat Demo Platform, available through Red Hat Partner Connect, will provide product demonstrations spanning the entire Red Hat portfolio for partners to showcase open-source innovations to customers in a low-risk environment. The platform includes multi-product demonstrations and fully scheduled workshops that can be used to deliver one- or two-day experiences to customers. The Red Hat Demo Platform will also offer participating partners early access to demonstrations of new product releases before their general availability.
Red Hat Partner Connect provides a single access point for new and existing Red Hat partners to access these new enhancements and all of Red Hat’s tools and resources to drive greater customer value and partner profitability. Red Hat Partner Connect facilitates partner registration and login to the partner portal for immediate access to the tools they need to build their business with Red Hat.
Red Hat is expected to launch its new partner collaboration model and offering in the second half of 2024. The Red Hat Partner Practice Accelerator Program is an invitation-only program that is currently open to eligible partners worldwide. The Red Hat Demo Platform is expected to be available in May 2024.