As you have likely heard, the Broadcom acquisition of VMware has resulted in significant changes to their program model and pricing structures. These updates are extremely impactful for nearly any customer’s business. As these changes are implemented, customers will look to you as their Trusted Advisor to help guide them through the complexities and ensure their cloud strategy continues to aid them in achieving their own business goals.
Plus, this presents an extremely valuable opportunity for you to open up a larger cloud conversation and access new revenue streams! To help you start the conversation, our team has put together a series of qualifying questions you can pose to your customers. Utilize these with customers to establish yourself as a guide through the cloud landscape and ensure they are still making their decisions with confidence and ease.
Opening Question
To begin the conversation, you’ll first need to establish how your customer uses VMware.
- Are you using VMware today? If so, on-prem or hosted?
On-prem Usage
If your customer confirms they use VMware on-prem, you can follow up with additional questions like the ones below to understand the size and scale of their usage.
- Do you know how the Broadcom acquisition will affect your licensing?
- How much licensing are you consuming? # VMs, # server cores
- Are you also paying to license a DR site?
Hosted Usage
If your customer confirms, they use VMware as a hosted solution, there are even more questions you can bring into the conversation to determine their level of understanding regarding the VMware updates, as well as any actions they’ve already taken to account for the program changes.
- Are you leveraging VMware on AWS or Azure VMware Solution?
- Have you started talking with your hosting provider about these changes?
- Are they on the short list of VMware providers in the new program?
- Do you also pay for DR with your provider?
- Do you know how the acquisition will affect your rates?
- How large is your hosted environment? # VMs, # TBs storage
While these changes may present new challenges for customers in terms of pricing and usage, they can also provide a huge opportunity for both you and your clients! Leverage these updates to start the larger cloud conversation and help your customers refine and level up their cloud strategy. As you discover new and potential opportunities, don’t forget to also utilize our IaaS Interactive Quick Assessment form on Pathfinder! Here, you and your customers can complete a short and efficient questionnaire where you’ll define the scope of the deal and share requirements with AVANT Engineers so they can provide their own expertise throughout your opportunity.
To learn more about the VMware program updates, check out our recorded webinar on Pathfinder 2.0, where experts from AVANT and key cloud solution providers dive into the details of what’s changing and what you need to know to guide your customers.