IBM fuels partner appetite for strategic AI innovation with support

IBM believes traditional resellers are evolving and becoming strategic innovators driven by artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud solutions.

In an interview with ARN, IBM market leader for ecosystem Billy Apoleska said the vendor’s partner programs include service, build, and focuses on co-selling and channel support.

With the advent of AI and agentic AI, partners required tools, training and resources to navigate complexities of these technologies, she noted.

“One of the most exciting things is how we co-collaborate and work really closely with our ecosystem around the collaboration,” said Apoleska. “Co-creation is something that is quite unique [and] changes [partners] from a standard resell type mindset to becoming really a strategic innovation accelerator.

“IBM’s greater strength is working with our ecosystem around fuelling meaningful innovation to the market, I think that’s certainly critical with our rich history.”

Currently, the vendor has its service, build and sell motions wrapped around its Influence and GSI programs.

Then there is the Field, which is its co-creation level, which is an independent software vendor- (ISV) type model, although it caters to any partner that wants to take a solution out to market.

This level allows the partner to embed IBM technology as part of that, with the ability to augment and accelerate their product, said Apoleska.

Then there is the sell motion, which its Partner Plus program wraps around, she added.

IBM has a commitment to the channel, collaborating with partners and services them in the Select Space level within the program, Apoleska explained.

“We do have Select Territory Space which is two separate parts. One is [our] BPS [business partner sales] tree, and then the second part of that is our Digital Territory.”

The BPS part is the higher end of that triangle and IBM has high propensity clients which the vendor works with and has a seller assigned to them, Apoleska noted.

“In order to commit our eco-first model to the market, our BPS sellers that own that select BPS territory are only recognised if that transaction is through a channel partner,” she said.

“There’s some complexity to the tools being sold and that’s where we are focused on giving [the ecosystem] tools as an example, which the IBM sales team has access to.”

That’s why the vendor is collaborating with partners to accelerate them into the AI and agentic technology space.

“[With] the further integration of AI and agentic and the more that comes up, it’s really about trying to enable more personalised and efficient client experiences,” she said. “Our partners obviously have domain expertise, and [they] have long term client relationships.

“We can work with them to ensure that point of view is wrapped in and we’re co-selling together.”

Helping partners catch up

The partner segments that are most ready for agentic AI are those currently with a strong focus on AI and are enhancing what they currently deliver to their clients with a more modern and innovative and cutting-edge technology, Apoleska observed.

“Some of them have already integrated IBM’s AI into their solution,” she said. “They’ve got some of those necessary skills and expertise and resources to be able to leverage that agentic AI more effectively.

“On the other hand, those partners who haven’t yet embraced AI, or they’ve got limited experience the AI technologies, we’re trying to help them by providing that additional support, training and resources to fully leverage authentic AI and to remain competitive in the market.”

Apoleska said IBM was working shoulder to shoulder to help these partners catch up and provide targeted sales enablement, co-creation opportunities and access to the latest AI libraries and tools.

“It’s about fostering that collaboration and knowledge sharing with our ecosystem,” she said. “We see them as an extension of IBM.”

While a lot of IBM partners have access to its technology zones where they “have the opportunity to play in that sandpit”, it also has partners that have formed their own solution.

“[They’re] coupling their domain expertise and taking a particular use case out to an industry where they have a lot of experience and exposure,” Apoleska explained. “We are coupling with our partners to ensure that they are getting the best journey around strengthening more meaningful innovation in the market.

As part of that, IBM has introduced a client engineering team to help with design thinking. They also have specific skills around AI and innovation, she noted.

This type of support is crucial as IBM’s clients and partners tap into those foundation models and machine learning with their own data to accelerate those AI workloads.

The vendor is seeing the transformation of AI not just from a talk piece but to efficiency and really augmenting day-to-day job requirements. This is driving the market to shift away from exploration to real adoption.

“That’s where we find the biggest opportunities within the ecosystem over the next few years, particularly around data and AI,” said Apoleska. “I see our partners capitalising on this by developing and implementing WatsonX-powered solutions.”

This is why IBM’s focus around partner skills and capabilities, hybrid cloud and AI solution was important. It treats partners as an “extension of IBM sales team”, she said.

“It’s [partner programs] have unrivalled incentives,” she added. “We give access to technology expertise, resources with hands-on support, training, tools [and] badging systems.

“We are really working on how we enable our partners to continue to build those technique technical skills and be able to continue to compete effectively in the market.”

The partner ecosystem has become “very multifaceted”, even more so than “20 years ago”, said Apoleska who has over 12 years of experience in various roles at IBM, as well as more than 30 years in the local IT channel.

“In the last five years, we’ve had to buckle up because things are moving so fast … but what an exciting space,” she said. “It’s not reselling software, it’s about creating something that is transformational.

However, Apoleska noted her experience with the strategic approach to partners still holds true to this day and was adamant about continuing this strategy.

“Partners are look looking for those co investment models and the shared IP,” she added. “There’s hunger around the ecosystem on how they help their customers transform.”