Table of Contents
Fueled by SolidFire Vision
. . .3
Commitment to Service Providers
. . .4
Fueled by SolidFire Program Introduction
. . .5
Program Summary
. . .6
Program Usage Guide
. . .7
Program Benefits at a Glance
. . .8
Program Benefits in Detail
. . . .10
Whether an enterprise or a service provider, the Fueled by SolidFire program helps customers understand how next-generation storage systems can have the greatest impact on driving business transformation to achieve both short-term and long-term strategic initiatives and business goals.
We have designed the Fueled by SolidFire program to be as innovative as our storage technology and with the goal of acting as a true partner and trusted adviser so we can act as the catalyst for process improvement as well as being a driver of true business transformation.
Fueled by SolidFire Vision
The globally recognized Fueled by SolidFire™ brand signals to SolidFire prospects and customers that they are engaging with a company that is committed to not only to bringing innovative and market leading storage technologies to market but it signals a paradigm shift in how companies are able to use technology to address critical business challenges. The Fueled by SolidFire program is highly consultative and strategic in nature with the goal of solving current and future business challenges with innovative storage technologies.
The core of the Fueled by SolidFire program is the understanding that every customer interaction is focused around how SolidFire technology enables the cloud (public or private) as a key delivery model for the evolution of enterprise IT services.
Commitment to Service Providers
SolidFire recognizes that as a service provider (SP), you play a key role for your customers by developing, deploying and supporting innovative technology solutions in an effort to support their business needs.
SolidFire was developed to solve the storage challenges experienced by hosting service providers and we are committed to the continued support of the service provider community.
The Fueled by SolidFire program guide was written to explain the program requirements and benefits and offer a roadmap to help deliver a better partnership experience.
Fueled by SolidFire Program
Introduction
Fueled by SolidFire is a rapidly recognized program that signals to cloud customers that the solution they are purchasing is built on SolidFire’s high-performance storage system offering consistent and guaranteed application performance. SolidFire is committed to assisting our service provider customers in the development, productization, and marketing of their solutions that are Fueled by SolidFire. In support of these efforts we have developed a program that will help you bring your Fueled By SolidFire solution to market faster and with more revenue-generating impact on your business.
This program will help you:
Better understand the market opportunity specifically for your organization based on your unique customer base.
Help you build more accurate financial models based on your market opportunity.
Accelerate your time to market by streamlining the productization process.
Complete productization sooner by assisting with packaging, pricing and positioning discussions.
Provide access to market development funds for lead generation and marketing programs.
Assist in improving systems utilization through co-marketing and promotional activities.
Program Summary
Phase 1
SolidFire Overview
• Market opportunity definition
• Use case identification
• Business model overview
• Technical deep dive
• Live product demonstration
Phase 3
Integration
Fueled by SolidFire program delivery
• Joint press release
• SolidFire video case study
• SolidFire whitepaper case study
• Co-brandable collateral
• Sales & sales engineering training
• Billing integration support
• Management stack integration
support
Phase 2
Production
Hands-on productization workshop
• Packaging
• Pricing
• Positioning
• Business model detail
definition
• QoS SLA reference documents
Tools to assist
• Margin analysis
• MRD
• Service description
• Training deck/Materials
Phase 4
Acceleration
Post Sale Program implementation
Joint customer case study Lead acceleration (MDF pending) Field marketing and events planning
• E-mail/DM programs
• Co-branded content
development
• Funded telesales
• Webinars
• Content syndication
• Sales initiatives • Sales training
Program Usage Guide
The Fueled by SolidFire Program offers service providers the ability to accelerate solution deployment, shorten the time it takes to achieve a positive ROI and develop innovative solutions that help differentiate them in the hosting marketplace.
The Fueled by SolidFire program is available to all companies developing, deploying and selling public or private cloud solutions with SolidFire acting as a key storage component of the underlying architecture.
The primary goals of the FBSF program are to:
• Reduce productization time – by offering service provider experienced resources to deliver onsite go-to-market pricing and positioning workshop assistance for both executive and product management teams. • Driving improved systems utilization – by collaborating on joint
marketing efforts to drive leads to service provider’s sales teams in order to drive both revenue and utilization.
• Help develop new market opportunities – by delivering broad industry expertise and market knowledge, SolidFire can help you develop unique solutions with differentiating value propositions to better serve your customers’ hosting needs.
• Accelerate service provider marketing efforts – by providing secure access to a library of SolidFire specific content and re-brandable collateral.
• Improve sales engineering effectiveness – by delivering deep technical training to your sales engineers that aligns with the technical architecture of SolidFire storage and the overall value proposition of your productized solution.
• Improve account executive effectiveness – by delivering effective sales training to ensure your account executives deliver the right storage related value proposition to your customers.
• Help service providers reduce customer churn – by delivering an innovative storage architecture specifically designed for large-scale service providers.
• Co-branded promotional activities
• Market development funds
• In-depth marketing resource availability and marketing planning
assistance
• Go-to-market planning workshops
• Service provider AE and SE training programs
• Productization assistance
• Program management
• Local sales and sales engineering assistance
Program Benefits at a Glance
The Fueled by SolidFire program is designed to meet the needs of a broad range of service providers.
Our service providers have access to the following benefits:
Initial Program Entry
New service provider customers will automatically be enrolled in the Fueled by SolidFire Program. To maintain membership, service providers must keep system maintenance up to date and in good standing.
Executive Support
Participants in the Fueled by SolidFire Program are required to have executive level sponsorship to ensure participation of all key internal stakeholders in all relevant co-marketing activities.
Program Benefits in Detail
Go-to-market planning workshop
SolidFire’s distributed storage architecture opens up many new positioning and product opportunities to hosting services providers so a key component of the Fueled by SolidFire Program is the free go-to-market planning workshop. The planning workshop takes place on the customer premise and helps hosting providers understand the financial possibilities offered by implementing SolidFire storage.
Service provider AE and SE training programs
We believe that the more educated service providers’ account executives are about SolidFire storage, the more successful they will be in delivering the solution value proposition. Working with account executives and field sales engineers, the SolidFire Program Manager will coordinate training as requested.
Productization assistance
Participants in the Fueled by SolidFire Program will have access to specialized productization resources to act as subject matter experts in storage product management. These resources will work with your product teams and provide assistance with solutions pricing and positioning.
Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR)
Measurement of success is key to our partnership. Your account executive, your sales engineer and the SolidFire Program Manager will work quarterly to ensure that you are receiving the support that you need to deliver your Fueled by SolidFire solutions. In the QBR we also develop a quarterly plan for co-marketing activities and lead generation programs.
Marketing Support
Co-branded promotional activities
Participants in the Fueled by SolidFire Program looking to experience the full benefits of the program, including MDF, are required to participate in co-branded promotional assets for the Fueled by SolidFire Program that include a video and written case study and joint press release. Additionally, Fueled by SolidFire Program participants are asked to provide their logo and quotes for public use on SolidFire’s website and other marketing or promotional material produced by SolidFire.
Market development funds
Market Development Funds (MDF) are discretionary allocations made available to help promote your Fueled by SolidFire based solutions, differentiate your cloud and hosting services in the market and drive storage revenue through awareness, demand generation and sales enablement activities.
Your Fueled by SolidFire Marketing partner will work with you to allocate MDF and develop and approve a marketing plan using the SolidFire Marketing Plan Template. Payout of funds takes place after completion of the approved activity and submission of the SolidFire Reimbursement Claim Form. SolidFire may deny claims that do not follow the MDF usage guidelines, adhere to the approved marketing plan, or show proper documentation of invoices and activity, if applicable.
MDF Process:
Approve Plan(SolidFire)
Execute Plan and Claim Funds(Service Provider)
Report Results(Service Provider)
Develop Marketing Plan & Define KPIs (Service Provider & SolidFire)
Any and all storage services sold by the Service Provider utilizing SolidFire storage (including public or private cloud storage or dedicated traditional storage services) are eligible for MDF and can be supported by the marketing plan activities. The Fueled by SolidFire logo must be included in all awareness and demand generation activities supported by MDF.
In-depth marketing resource availability and marketing
planning assistance
SolidFire makes available marketing resources to assist with MDF marketing plan creation, implementation and tracking. These resources can also act as content reviewers and copy editors helping in the creation of specific content driving the appropriate marketing message. All participants in the Fueled by SolidFire Program will also have access to a host of re-brandable content, collateral and training materials. Qualifying activities for the marketing plan should be distributed
among three categories: awareness, demand generation and sales enablement, as follows.
Category MDF Mix Qualifying Activities
Awareness 20% • Paid Search
• Digital or Print Ads / Display / Retargeting • Paid Social
• Brochures
Demand
Generation 60% • Email / DM Programs• Telesales
• Webinars
• Customer Seminars (CIO Symposiums, ect.) • Tradeshow (Booth / Sponsorship) • Content Development (whitepaper, tools /
templates, webinar deck, ROI calculators) • Content Syndication
• Customer Offers • POC Development
Sales
Enablement 20% • Sales Incentives / SPIFFs• Sales Training
1620 Pearl Street, Suite 200 • Boulder, Colorado 80302 • 720.523.3278 • [email protected] • solidfire.com
About SolidFire
SolidFire is the market leader in high-performance data storage systems designed for large-scale public and private cloud infrastructure. Leveraging an all-flash scale-out storage architecture with patented volume-level Quality of Service (QoS) controls, providers can now guarantee storage performance to thousands of applications within shared infrastructures. By using real-time data reduction techniques and system-wide automation, SolidFire is fueling new and profitable block-storage services that are advancing the way the world uses the cloud.
