EMC has implemented a new Business Partner Program, according to Fred Kohout, VP of Global Partner Marketing at EMC. Completely retooled from previous years, the Partner Program was developed to help train EMC’s reseller partners. It rewards partners with increased revenue opportunities and expanded market penetration. Based on four tiers, the program offers additional benefits and rewards based on a partner’s revenue, training, and any special achievements. The program is expected to go live in January 2015.

Kohout recently spoke with Dave Vellante and Steve Miniman of theCUBE at EMC World 2014. And when asked how the program changed, Kohout responded by saying that the new program is built around three core principles, with the first being flexibility and choice, the second is solutions and service, and the final piece of the puzzle is the notion of embracing and allowing the program to drive the transformation taking place on the platform.

When explaining the core concept of flexibility and choice, Kohout added, “First principle: pick the track that you’d like. We aren’t going to handcuff you; we won’t make you go into one drive versus another. Pick the track that works for you. Once you do that, if you go broad in your investment up through including our safe, secure world, then we are going to make it more beneficial for you.”

Kohout explained the core concept of solutions and service this way: Whereas the old program was built around products, this newest iteration is based on solutions. And the solutions that a particular partner receives depends in large part upon the tier they are a part of. The entry level tier alone has 50 different technology tracks. And the benefits only increase from there.

“The next level up, gold, is all about solutions, solution selling and solution enablement,” Kohout explained. “We are going to take all of the EMC architect solutions that Bill Raftery’s team is building, and they will be embedded in that program. Then a layer up on the platinum tier is going to be all the EVP and Federation solutions.”

The motivation behind the third core concept, embracing transformation, includes making the entire program a more fluid engagement. According to Kohout, “A service provider willing to base business on the EMC work structure can now work with our reseller community to expand their scale and reach out to the marketplace. We make it beneficial for them and the reseller, who may not want to invest to become a class service provider, to now refer or resell those cloud service provider offerings. We allow the reseller to retire their quota based on what they resell of the cloud service provider’s offerings. We are really trying to make this a more fluid engagement.”