Partner Summit Breakout: SI Partner Program Update

Summary

• Growing SI ecosystem: Databricks has reached 5,800 SI and ISV partners with thousands of trained consultants, creating significant value through continued partner investment.
• Partner Value Score updates: This video covers the latest updates to Partner Value Score, revised incentives structures and the Brickbuilder Program focused on industry solution development.
• Go-to-market strategy: The partnership framework prioritizes industry-first product approach and collaborative go-to-market strategy, helping partners lead customer innovation across new markets.

Partner Summit Breakout: SI Partner Program Update

Talk by Josh Meyer, Global Head of Brickbuilder Program , Databricks ; Karl Kadon, Global Ldr Partner Programs & Solutions, Databricks ; Sonal Mane, Senior Director, Alliances, Databricks
Come and hear the latest on SI Partner Program - updates to Partner Value Score, the latest on incentives and the latest on our Brickbuilder Program.

FAQs

How many SI and ISV partners does Databricks have?

Databricks has 5,800 SI and ISV partners this year, with thousands of trained consultants across the ecosystem.

What programs were discussed?

This video covers updates to the Partner Value Score, new incentives and the Brickbuilder Program focused on developing industry-specific solutions.

What is Brickbuilder?

Brickbuilder is Databricks' program focused on developing industry solutions, led by Josh Meyer and supported by a best-in-class team focused on partner innovation.

How does the partnership framework work?

The framework emphasizes industry-first product priority and go-to-market strategy to empower partners to lead customer innovation by working collaboratively.

Full transcript

Welcome everybody to Partner Summit. Um I'm super super excited to be with you today. Um it's it's just an incredible feeling I have. This is my fourth Partner Summit. Uh so super excited to engage with you, empower your teams, help us expand to new markets like my boss said on the on the other stage. Um, and together we can ignite some more momentum on this uh, rocket ship that's data bricks. For those of you who don't know me, I run our global partner programs and solutions team.
Uh, this this team exists to empower all of you, our partners, uh, to lead customer innovation by working together through an industry first product priority and go to market strategy. So, this is across the partner programs team and the brickuilders organization. So, I have a best-in-class team that's focused on all of this with you. So, starting from the left, who's also in the room, leads our brick builder program focused on developing industry solutions.
Sonoma Manet, who's going to join me on stage a little bit later, leads our SI partner program. And then our partner development center, talked about them a little bit as well, based in, and. And then some of you probably know some seasoned veterans that we have, and. uh who are who are here to help our uh scale ecosystem grow as well. So let's talk a little bit about the journey that you guys are on with us. But first I want to say thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your resolve for your commitment to our mission, our shared goals. And these logos on this page would not be here without all of you. A few specific things make me incredibly proud of what I'm seeing here. And yes, this this was shown before, but I just think I I wanted I'd be remiss if I didn't show it again because I think it's super super incredible and impactful to show just the how how much the partner ecosystem has grown through this transparent, open, and collaborative framework that we have to 5,800 SI and ISV partners this year.
We've got a ton of trained consultants through thanks to all of you for investing. Um, and the value of the business that you continue to bring to us continues to increase year-over-year and that's only going to continue to pick up. So, where better to start than on the partner journey? So, that's the point of this discussion today. We're going to talk about a few things that are new in this partner journey, some commitments that we're making to all of you.
And starting with product access, we were we're going to talk a little bit more about increased access to test and demo environments through ser through our serverless sandbox initiative, our velocity activation rewards initiative. So we have a new and richer velocity incentive than before. We'll talk a little bit about that. Our brick builder specializations designations as well. We're going to talk a little about that. talked about this uh a little bit earlier, but this is a way for you to earn public recognition with specialized status to make your industry solutions eligible for the brick builder program.
So, it's all kind of on the same track. Without further ado, I want to bring Sonel up here to talk a little bit more about this with you, Sonel. So, as if it wasn't enough that there's 4,000 plus partners, we'll just talk a little bit about how we can get all of you activated and moving and really excited about the rest of what we have to share. Starting with Velocity. How many here have actually heard about Velocity?
Okay, good. So, quick update. Today marks an exciting step forward as we announce to you the introduction of the next iteration of the data bicks FY26 velocity program. And so what's new? This program was actually originally built uh to engage the entire data bricks SI ecosystem and now it's bigger and better than ever. So, by focusing on sourcing, activating your customers, and expanding their use cases, we're driving mutual success, and scaling opportunities across the ecosystem.
In the next few minutes, we'll explore what makes this program transformative, what's new, and why engaging with Velocity now will unlock new growth for your business and our shared customers. So, here's a quick peak into the new and improved Velocity financial incentive. So, as I was mentioning, as you source, as you activate those use cases, and as you grow your customers, there's a three component model here at play.
First off, when you think about bringing in and activating new accounts in these green field accounts, we have a SPIFF component where as these accounts grow and reach 3,000 plus dollars in consumption, we actually provide an activation incentive. uh that's a $3,000 spiff, but then it continues and gets bigger and better. So, as you go over the multiple quarters and you continue fueling your customers and driving their use case consumption, for every quarter that your customers are above that $3,000 limit, we also add in incentives on a quarter-over-quarter basis.
So, you're getting up to $10,000 per quarter based on the consumption of your customers. And then the last piece of the com of the whole velocity program, which is the third component, is the commit rebate. So let's assume your customers are really happy and you've not only just activated this green field account, but you've consistently shown growth on their consumption. At the third component, as soon as they sign their commit, you're now eligible for a 5 to 10% rebate.
So, not only has the program grown from what it was in back at the partner kickoff for those of you who were joining us at that session, but it's also become more and more compelling and you know sort of driving the success alongside the customers and and making sure that you're actually getting incentivized along the way. So, when we think about this, we're opening this up right now to the select and elite partners and a few registered partners.
But as we look into the future, the program will scale across the entire ecosystem as we get towards the close of the fiscal year. So I'll just pause there. Any questions on that? If not, we can take some questions after as well. Yes, we'll be able to make that functionality and that information available to you. So let's take an aspirational story, right? So, let's assume we have. That's a partner corporation. Um, and they're coming in and they've started working with this new green field customer.
For lack of a better name, I'm calling them Logic Core Tech. Uh, and they bring in Logicore and Logic wants to build this patient analytics solution and they start working with this particular customer. So the minute our partner corp registers their opportunity, which if you haven't already, the partner portal is that place to start registering your deals. You start getting that first incentive, which is the $3,000 spiff, right?
So we have on the team who's now working with Logicore Tech and they've not only started building the prototype, but they're started starting to now start using the prototype, moving it into production and starting to look at what the benefits could look like from this patient analytics uh solution. And so as and her team further build out this solution, they start growing consumption, right? And that consumption on a quarter over aquarter basis goes to 3k and then 5k and beyond.
And you can kind of see that uptick. And as a result of that, every quarter, and team and will start benefiting from that customer's consumption going up. So then we look at a rebate over a four quarter period and we say, okay, what's the maximum payout that team could have gotten? And that's approximately 50K. Not only that, at the end of the year or even before that, if and do and the team decide to lock in Logicore and drive a commit as a result of that, they can further get up to 20K.
So if you add all of this up, and just to reiterate, this is on a per customer account basis. So if you have more customers, you're just multiplying this, we're looking at about 73K as the payout at the end of the of year or before depending on how fast you move. So that's really the what's there and what's in it and how can you now start acting on that is to really go into that partner portal, start submitting your use cases and your opportunities.
It's the first button when you log in. So you can start like literally right now if you haven't already. Um and then start bringing in those deals and we promise you we have a way way way better improved program that I'll talk about in just a second when it comes to your deal registration. So we've improved that SLA as well. And so then as you start driving consumption, we have our partner solutions team. We have our partner development center.
There's a lot of resources available to you, including our product team to actually help grow those use cases and build those use cases. Uh and then finally, as you close on the commits as well, uh there is a ton that we can do there together to actually help you close on those final deals. So start registering those new use cases and just know that Velocity is for us more than just a monetary incentive structure, right?
It's a partnership framework that we've built to actually drive a lot of our growth and mutual success together. Go ahead. Net new data bricks accounts. So it has to be a green field account. That's a net new account. a new logo that you're bringing to the table. Yep. And so with Velocity, if you heard about message, uh our mission is to definitely, you know, empower, engage, and expand our success together. So the time to act is now.
So start activating and getting moving into the whole velocity uh program. Here's the next piece, which is really critical as you get started into, you know, something like Velocity. The first step is to actually register that deal. And what we've done over the past six months, thanks to our awesome partner operations team and the rest of the crew, we've actually improved that deal registration process to the point where we have about 5x higher lead conversion today and simply said what that means is that every time you register a deal, we'll respond faster. you'll get a way better triage process and your PVS score will be impacted in a much much better improved fashion.
So again, a lot of the sort of slowed down process that some of you might have experienced has been cleaned up and so now is again way way better a time for you to come in and start registering those deals with us. Next up, touched on this a little bit in terms of solutions, and I know he'll be up here in a second to talk to you all about some of the brick builder work, but a lot of these solutions and things that you're actually developing need a sandbox to actually build inside.
So, the second benefit that we're here to talk about is the partner sandbox, which essentially gives you product access and also access into the latest data bricks AI and u data features. And so what is data bricks express and what is the partner sandbox uh where you can actually experience data bricks express. Essentially data bricks express is designed to provide a frictionless lightweight serverless environment which enables partners to effectively accelerate adoption of data bricks.
So it's our way of saying come learn upskill enable your teams in a way that you can then be the arms and limbs into the customer ecosystem and help them understand the power of the data and AI platform that is data bricks. So we've listened to your feedback and we've further grown this initiative. We've built it in a way that we've got way more simplified operations, but there's also a ton of flexibility now available through DB demos, uh, sorry, through data bricks demos apps, uh, and a lot of walkthroughs that are just turnkey out of the box when you sign up into the data bricks express sandbox.
So again, just to iterate, you will have access to the serverless horsepower as well. So this will help you get all of your Genie AI, BI use cases, DBRX, all of that running fast. uh and in a much more sort of frictionless fast fashion. So when it comes to the sandbox itself, what does that benefit look like? So of course we don't want you to pay for the sandbox up front. So what we've done is we've opened up to a set of elite select partners as well as a few registered partners. $2,000 in credits for you to come start building with us.
As you source new logos, we stack on. So, not only do you get that spiff that I just talked about as part of the velocity incentive, but you also get access to more credits to actually help build out your customer workspaces and prototypes and solutions that you might want to demo to your customers. And then last but not the least, you can actually use a lot of the turnkey solutions like the apps as well as the Genai solutions that are available uh in DB Express.
So, very quickly, um I won't go through what you get. It's pretty pretty easy to read up here, but the simplest thing is when you activate this partner sandbox, you're activating it for your team internally. And then for your customers, we actually ask that you activate a new workspace which they have access to and it's activated through you. So you can add yourselves as the admin and you have those credits then available.
So that way your customers are also derisking their investment on the platform. They can self-learn and you can help them grow together. PC's is another thing which we will not support in the sandbox but you can build solutions, you can build your demos, you can build your prototypes. Uh and there is a bunch of partner solution architect members that are there to help you with that as well. Next up, here's just a quick peek into what those product demos look like.
So if you went on to data bricks. com, you can see that there's demos across different use cases, but also across different industries that you can, you know, take advantage of. So you have something that's ready to build out of the box. You're downloading the notebook, you're opening it up in DB Express, and you can just get up and running. And last but not the least, Deote was one of our uh strong success stories that came out of our first few months of launching uh the sandbox.
Uh and essentially what we did was uh we provided them a few credits and we said, "Okay, let's let's have your team go enable and build on this." uh and so con was a use case or converge consumer was a use case uh which was essentially a set of assets and services uh that they used uh to actually that they created as a part of this sandbox. Uh but the reason the story is compelling is because we've created this entire DB Express partner sandbox experience with really one clear goal in mind.
It's your success. It's so that you can actually learn, enable and drive your customers to build on the platform which then enables the success for all of you here. And then your success eventually leads to the mutual success for all of us. And so as partners, you are the driving force behind delivering this transformative value to customers across industries. So what's next? We want you to explore the partner sandbox and velocity. and I'll call back on stage to talk about the next big thing that's brick builders.
Okay. So, I talked a little bit about this at partner kickoff. So, some of you were there, I think. Um, but really, really excited now to announce that we're launching partner specializations within the brick builder program. So, what does this mean? This means that we're dropping the requirements for it now. You'll have six months to complete the requirements and then we'll snap the chalk line at the end of the year and confer specializations on them.
So, we wanted to give you all runway for this. Why are we doing this and how are we doing this? In line with a lot of other specializations and competency programs, we wanted to give everybody something that was built on top of a framework that was scal scalable with targets that were achievable in a concrete requirementsdriven process. that with clear value back to you and to the customer. So all those things, all those design principles were kept in mind throughout the design of this program.
And I think I'm confident that you'll see this. The page is live right now on the partner portal. So you can go there today as we sit here and take a look at the detailed requirements. We talk about the use cases that you can look into. This was a wide crossf functional effort and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to our tech enablement, our uh sales enablement team, our partner solutions architect team, our marketing team, everybody.
It was a it was a lot of a lot of uh points in the web. So starting today, we're also we've dropped the requirements for nine separate specializations on the partner portal. These are six aligned to our topend verticals. This is what Vash Patel has talked about, a number of his folks on his team have talked about and then our products. So there is has been kind of an internal uh look at you know the top partners by product that will go away at the end of the year and it will be supplanted by this.
So this is the bus to be on when it comes to shortlisting or surfacing the top partners uh by industry vertical and by product. And so you can you know looking at these I know there are a number of different subverticals that are bucketed within these but um the idea is that starting next year we'll probably get a little bit more granular with this. So this is the but this is the launch essentially. So and then on the products one of the key differentiators on the product side is these also require a PSA assessment.
There there's a study component to this. The security and governance uh product specialization is actually a requirement for the generative AI and the data warehouse migrations specialization. So security and governance signifies your proficiency with unity catalog migrations as well. So please make take a look at the partner portal now take a look at the requirements and h our team is happy to answer any questions. So what do you get uh what do you get when you achieve a specialization?
So on the journey to this, you get to be eligible for the brick builder uh solutions program. So partners achieving this specialized status will earn the ability to submit their solutions for consideration to the brick builder program. Why are we doing this? Why are we making this a prerequisite? Well, because we are making the brick builder program solutions much more differentiated within the body of solutions that we market internally.
So, we've got an army of business value, sales development, partner marketing, industry marketing, sales programs, all lined up around our industry imperatives to activate these solutions within the brick build. Said it once, I'll say it again. This is the bus. Get on the bus. Targeted training resources. We want to make sure that our specialized partners have access to training journeys from our tech enablement and sales sales enablement teams within the data bricks partner academy.
More of these will be made available in the second half as well. Co-selling co-selling and go to market support. You'll recognize some of the friendly faces on here from the partner sales and partner SA organization. I've been working with many of these people for close to a decade. So, it's I know that they stand at the ready, but they need to know who's good at what, and this is going to be the vehicle to do that. Branding and marketing benefits, not the least of which is new wonderful badging.
That's the beautiful green specializations badge that you can put all over your stuff. Um, we want to make sure that we work handinand glove with our partner marketing team on specialized brick builder code demand generation events specially suited for specialized partners. And then also eligibility to the new partner advisory boards that we're going to be putting together and roadmap access. You'll see in the coming months and over the next year a lot more of a cadence of product roadmap access for our partners who are who are committing to these various parts of our partner program.
So be on the lookout for that as well. So what does it mean to start your specialization journey? You get a specialization, you achieve you you submit your accelerators, you submit your solutions to the brick builder program. This is how you do it. So just to kind of walk you through some of the basic requirements and these are emblematic of kind of most of them but um just to kind of walk through this. So we're looking at select partners or above.
If you're trending select we'll h we're happy to talk to you about this as well. But the idea is that you've showcased your firm at the firm level the ability to operate within the program at this level. Second, uh we want to make sure that you guys have the capacity to sell and deliver in this arena. So, whatever it is, whether it's manufacturing or healthcare or life sciences or financial services, we want to make sure that you guys have the requisite staffing so that when we do activate all these customers, you're able to service the revenue.
Third, joint customer footprint. This is a minimum bar for us as well on the partner program. So it complements that, but we want to make sure that we see something that's repeatable across a number an array of customers that hits a minimum value threshold. Fourth, and this is something that is new and it's something that we're stressing a lot more within brick builder, public customer references. This is I want to stress that I know I know it's tough, but it's something that, you know, we're we're willing to look back into FY25.
We're in FY26 now. We're willing to look back in FY25 at your public customer references that are pertinent to this program, to this particular industry or product, but it's really important to our sales teams that they have the ability to talk about, uh, your shared success with our customers. Sec. We want to know where you're where you're aiming and so that we can get aligned and so that we can align so that and Sonel and our team can align you guys with our partner sales teams.
We want to know where you have existing relationships so that we can set them up and knock them down together. Thought leadership publications. This is something again on the partner portal. There's an intake form for this. It's operated by our marketing and partner solution architect teams today. But and reach out to us if you need any help or guidance on this. But we care very deeply about getting your voice out into the market and seeing it and hearing it.
So this is blogs. It's uh white papers, its articles, it's customer case studies. And then the last two things, I think I mentioned this a little bit before, but none of these none of the industry designations require an assessment yet. Uh but the product ones do. So, currently this requires you to sit down with an with a PSA for an hour, hour and a half and talk through what you what you're bringing to the table from an asset perspective.
All right. Last thing I'll say on brick builder is um you know there's been a lot of stress around um around creating a a detailed reference architecture just a bit of a guidance on this. I want to emphasize the importance of building holistic industry solutions for our customers that leverage all types of data bricks partners. I think it's really powerful when we show the network effect across the ecosystem. So I think I want to showcase some of the benefits that you get if you do include datab bricks ISVS inside your reference architectures for your brick builder solutions.
Number one, our team will prioritize allocating datab bricks executive sponsorship named executive sponsors to solutions that include ISVS in the reference architecture. Number two, you can combine the MDF benefits, so up to $20,000 for uh brick builder solutions with the ISVS that you include in the reference architecture. And number three, our sales development team also stands at the ready to work with you on scripts and outbound call campaigns into named accounts.
So, we realize this is a bit of a custom effort, but we want to show that our commitment to you that if you put the effort into this, we're happy to put the effort into that. So, Sonel's team is running this. I'm really excited about this. The first contest we've run to drive sales badges. Yes. One cloud. All right. QR codes galore. It's a new initiative for registered and select partners. This is designed to enhance your sales expertise while fostering healthy competition across the ecosystem.
So beyond Slack, beyond swag, select winners are also going to receive recognition, including the opportunity to present at the partner summit next year and a bonus of PVS points for the top three partners. So the registration period is now until the end of June. So please encourage your teams to register. Um, it's going to happen until October 31st of this year, but it's going to include sales badges all the way back to February 1st.
So, it's not like the momentum you've had on sales badges has been lost. Um, so you just register in the partner portal and then you earn as many sales badges as you can in the partner academy. So overall, we we really just want to make sure that we're going to market together, that you understand uh how we sell and especially with our industry first go to market this year. So we just we wanted to make it a little bit fun for you and then join us at the partner technical kickoff.
Uh this is really exciting. So you have an exclusive opportunity to connect with product and field engineering here. So just uh scan the QR code and you can opt in as well on this one. So you can learn alongside field engineering and interact a get a little bit more interaction with our product leaders. All right. And just really you know couple of calls to action that we you know Sonel mentioned earlier the PDC is holding office hours.
We're we have directed topics on these. So office hours on top. The next one's June 26th. We're going to make we're going to increase the cadence of these so you have a lot more touch points with our team. Second tech talks June 18th July 9th landing pages there. And then third, the ecosystem all hands. Super excited for that one. We'll do a recap of this. We'll talk a little bit more about some of the upcoming features, uh, some of the upcoming benefits as well, uh, and then some more timely announcements for the company on July 17th and 18th.
If you take nothing else away from today, please, number one, submit your use cases. It's the best way to bring deals to the table. It is the best way. Number two, enable your team. Please get certified. Badge your teams. Number three, showcase your wins. Discuss them with us. We're happy to coach you on what which way it can be consumed by the field because that is something we're trying to make as discoverable as possible by our field.
Uh, and we want you to earn specializations. This is super important to our field. It's important to our partnerships organization. And we hope it you'll you'll feel as it's as important to you as it is to us. All right. And then please complete your survey. You're going to complete a survey. You're going to get a survey emailed for this uh session. So please Uber five stars. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you all coming.
Thank you. Happy to take any questions.

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