It’s no secret that the pandemic has forced almost everyone and everything to undergo dramatic change.

Businesses are especially rushing to adapt to a rapidly developing digital economy as remote services and interactions accelerate toward being a necessity. And companies such as VMware Inc. are stepping in as the unsung heroes in these situations, curating cloud solutions for customers globally and forging valuable professional relationships along the way.

“As you think about VMworld this year, and truly becoming this multicloud provider, the role of the partner in this new world is more important than ever,” said Sandy Hogan (pictured), senior vice president of the Worldwide Partner and Commercial Organization at VMware. “In the past, candidly, it’s been more about the technology centricity and then figuring out how we attach partners to that.”

Hogan spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during theCUBE on VMworld event. They discussed Hogan’s contributions to VMware, the company’s massive partnership evolution and more. (* Disclosure below.)

Strength in numbers

Cloud service companies everywhere are striving for the same goal: delivering the fastest and most efficient cloud migration experience possible to businesses, Hogan explained. In fact, VMware is seeing more partners play key advisory roles to help customers become cloud smart and determine their specific roadmap, the timing of the roadmap, and what they will implement and when

“Customer success is a critical element of that, so that means how we help partners create new capabilities, new certifications, and helping them maximize the investments that they’re already making,” she said.

Partnerships between cloud companies benefit everyone, consumers and vendors alike, rather than market competition.

“I had titles in my role description that were all around digital transformation over a decade ago,” Hogan said. “That complexity has not allowed many of our customers to transform. With this evolution of helping our customers be cloud smart, it is forcing all of us in how we work together to bring those solutions in a much more digestible, consumable way.”

Moving into the future, VMware’s strategic partnerships will continue to grow more strategic, allowing the involved companies to solve business problems together and efficiently, Hogan concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE on VMworld event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for theCUBE on VMworld event. Neither VMware Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE