The News: IBM’s Partner Plus program, which was introduced one year ago, is now getting a formalized service track that is designed to directly help partners grow their services revenue and operations. The addition of the new service track is aimed at giving partners deeper collaboration with IBM technical and educational experts to provide more support to customers when it comes to IBM’s broad technology offerings, particularly with new tech including generative AI and hybrid cloud. Read the full press release about the services expansion of the IBM Partner Plus program on the IBM Newsroom website.

IBM Partner Plus Program to Help Partners Grow More Services Revenue

Analyst Take: This development is a smart move by IBM to add a rich service track to make its IBM Partner Plus program even more valuable for partners, especially as complex new products including generative AI and hybrid cloud continue to arrive on the tech scene at breakneck speeds for enterprise customers. Deeper partner programs aimed at increasing technical, educational, and sales expertise are incredibly valuable and will certainly drive sales for both IBM and its business partners around the world.

I especially like this move because it takes the IBM Partner Plus program in a great direction in 2024, properly recognizing that more attention must be made in providing partners with ongoing technology education, training, and expertise so that they can grow their services for their customers. This wise and forward-looking strategy is what I would expect here from Big Blue.

IBM introduced its updated IBM Partner Plus program in January 2023 to reinvent how it works with its business partners. The IBM Partner Plus program was designed to deliver deeper access to IBM technical and educational resources, sales assistance, incentives, and more to help partners grow their sales to customers. The enhanced program, which is built around IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy, is available to new and existing partners, including resellers, hyperscalers, technology providers, independent software vendors and systems integrators.

But as 2024 approached, IBM realized that the program still needed more direct technical and educational support, which inspired the addition of this new service track. Also targeted in the new service track is helping partners to generate more end-client demand, as well as accelerating and collaborating to create service offerings built around IBM technologies. In addition, the new track will promote closer alignment among IBM sellers and service partners to help them grow as they work with their clients.

Under the new service track, IBM will also provide specialized course offerings, expertise, and training badges to help service partners deepen their technical skills so that they can stand out for customers in the marketplace.

How a Broader IBM Partner Plus Program Helps Big Blue

As IBM describes it, one of the big motivations for adding a service track in its nascent IBM Partner Plus program was that the company has been diving into incredibly complex and new technologies including generative AI and AI across its product portfolio. Last May, IBM introduced its revolutionary watsonx generative AI and data platform, and the company is working hard to incorporate watsonx across its offerings. These technologies require partners to get more expertise as they introduce them to their customers, who need more assistance in finding use cases and transitioning them into their operations.

IBM service partners will be an important part of IBM’s success in growing their customer relationships and in making generative AI, AI, hybrid cloud, and other technologies used in more ways. I believe this approach is good by IBM to respond to these needs early and to help their partners expand their reach and grow their operations with these critical and still-evolving technologies. IBM partners have been telling the company that they want and need these deeper technical and educational resources and IBM is wisely listening.

Today’s enterprise technology customers are looking to modernize their IT stacks, automate systems and procedures for efficiencies, drive growth and revenue, improve their operations, and beat their competitors in the marketplace. In my view, this new service track for IBM’s Partner Plus program is a great start to making those goals come to fruition.

Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.