Fujitsu Introduces Ecosystem Platform to Stimulate and Accelerate Partner Collaboration

Fujitsu today announces the Ecosystem Platform, the latest step in the evolution of its SELECT Partner Program. Designed to help partners succeed in today’s data-driven era, the platform provides a dynamic space where customers and existing and new partners can collaborate, innovate and generate new business value. The Platform’s features allow partners to interact at many new levels, from promoting their own value-adding solutions and innovations, to posting “challenges” for new partner-to-partner collaborations to fulfil new customer projects.

With end-customers focused on implementing digital transformation while trying to stay on top of their IT estates’ growing complexity, the technology solutions needed to realize their ambitions are increasingly complex. As a result, there are many cases where no single vendor has the far-ranging expertise required to deliver a complete solution. Fujitsu’s Ecosystem Platform encourages the forging of partner-to-partner relationships and micro-alliances to assemble and deliver complete customer solutions. It promotes innovation and provides access to the support needed to bring new co-created solutions to market.

Harnessing the power of an ecosystem
The Fujitsu Ecosystem Platform is a dedicated collaboration platform where all participants’ unique capabilities are valued. Partners of all types and sizes can benefit. Those with special skills or inventions can find allies to help bring their ideas to life, while installers and integrators can contribute to larger projects. VARs, cloud service providers and distributors can use the Fujitsu Ecosystem Platform to extend services into new regions or verticals and leverage new alliances. With a centralized pool of resources to tap into when needed, participating partners can focus their investment on skills core to their businesses – with the confidence that specialist competencies are available via the Fujitsu Ecosystem Platform.

Fernanda Catarino, Head of Channel, Europe, at Fujitsu comments: “Existing programs are becoming less relevant to the channel since they don’t motivate new and evolving partners to access higher value, more complex customer projects. By contrast, the Fujitsu SELECT Partner program and our new Ecosystem Platform help partners better meet their customers’ data-driven transformation requirements. We recognize that Fujitsu partners want to deliver transformative solutions through collaboration. By encouraging partner-to-partner collaboration and existing micro-alliances, we can catalyze the innovation that the next wave of transformation demands.”

Different potential levels of engagement
The Fujitsu Ecosystem Platform offers varying levels of engagement for partners. At the heart is a lead-generation platform to build new partner-to-partner relationships. This makes it easier for SELECT partners to identify peers with the competencies they require to expand into a new geography or join forces to pitch for larger projects. Both customers and partners can share new projects by posting “challenges” and can search for potential collaborators using filters such as geography, vertical sector, or areas of technical expertise.

Another powerful feature of the Ecosystem Platform is how a partner can showcase solutions available for resale by their peers – for example, vertical-specific software combined with Fujitsu hardware. This is an opportunity for partners to extend the reach of their IP and gives other partners easy access to new, differentiating solutions.

A catalyst for new value creation
For partners with an idea for a value-add new service, but who need help bringing it to market, the Fujitsu Ecosystem Platform is the catalyst for innovation and deeper collaboration. Partners can participate in co-creation sessions based on Fujitsu’s proven Human Centric Experience Design (HxD) approach. These bring together experts from different fields, including multiple partners, customers and Fujitsu to define and ultimately deliver solutions.

Kasia Borowska, managing director, Brainpool AI adds: “This ecosystem addresses a key challenge that many companies currently face, namely the difficulty in finding high quality, cross-disciplinary technical resources. It does this by enabling collaboration between some of the brightest minds and best technology start-ups in the region to spark innovation. We anticipate that Fujitsu’s forward-looking approach will allow us to work with our peers to find new applications for AI and machine learning.”

Partners can access the Ecosystem Hub via: https://www.fujitsu.com/ecosystem

Notes to editors
Fujitsu’s SELECT Partner program is continuously enhanced and updated to meet channel partners’ changing needs. Unlike many traditional partner programs, it prioritizes building partners’ expertise and competencies in selling and supporting the Fujitsu portfolio, rather than focusing on revenue targets. Additionally, the program welcomes the participation of a broad cross-section of partners, including value-added resellers (VARs), value-added distributors (VADs), service providers (SPs) and telcos, independent software developers, service delivery partners and consultants with expertise in advanced technologies. All of these groups are welcome to participate in the integrated Fujitsu Ecosystem Hub.