SPLUNK.CONF25, Boston – A lot has happened at Splunk since its $28 billion acquisition by Cisco in March 2024. The data observability vendor, which started out in 2003 as the maker of a log file indexing and search tool, has grown and morphed into a data platform company focused on helping enterprises harness and scour their critical business data to drive deeper insights and broader success.
A host of major business strategy changes at Splunk took place even before the Cisco acquisition. This included a big move in 2023 to expand its work with channel partners to deliver Splunk products and services to the company’s enterprise and SMB customers.
"Many people know that Splunk has not always been channel first for customers,”
Scott Powers, Splunk’s global vice president for customer and channel strategy and the chief of staff to its chief revenue officer, told ChannelE2E at the recent Splunk.conf25 user conference. “Thankfully, two years ago we had a seismic shift in the business, before the acquisition announcement.”
Powers, who formerly led Splunk’s partner sales for the Americas until taking his new job on August 1, said that before the 2023 channel strategy changes, most of the company's business was directly with its end-user customers.
Cisco's acquisition of Splunk provided more incentives and direction for continuing the move to work with the channel, as Cisco had at least 20 years of experience in providing products and services using this system, said Powers.
At Splunk, that meant putting a premium on working with MSPs, VARs, Global Systems Integrators (GSIs), and other partners that possess broad technical aptitude to provide enterprises and SMBs with quality services and consulting, he said.
“The biggest opportunity for partners right now with our team is that we recently launched our FastPath Incentive Program,” which makes it easier for multiple partners to join together and help customers without complicating how the partners are paid for their involvement in the transactions, said Powers. In the past, the main partner booked a deal, making it difficult for other partners to bring in their expertise.
“Maybe that partner has the commercial relationship or procurement relationship,” said Powers. Now it will be easier for them to participate in such deals, he added. “This is something we have never done before. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. You do not want the conflict of your users being told by procurement that ‘this is who we are going to use.’ That is where we want to see a utopian future.”
A Believer in Indirect Sales Sets a Tone at Splunk
Powers’ boss,
Frank Dimina, Splunk's senior vice president and chief revenue officer, also spoke with ChannelE2E at the conference and shared his thoughts on how he views Splunk’s expanding partner program.
Dimina, who has been with Splunk since 2016, was promoted earlier this year as Splunk’s general manager for the Americas. He also served as the head of the company’s public sector business. In his new CRO role, he leads Splunk’s go-to-market sales.
Dimina is a believer in indirect sales since his early days of working with the public sector.
“One of my clear goals and strategy as general manager of the Americas was to make Splunk a much more channel-driven business,” said Dimina. “I would like to get us to Cisco’s high mark of 90% plus channel business. My whole career has been that way.”
For Splunk, its lack of channel partnerships in the past was not intentional, said Dimina. ”We did not have leaders with a lot of channel experience or who even really understood it. But our understanding has evolved.”
So far, “it has been a five-year journey, and we started in the single teens, double digits of what went through the channel when I was taking over in the Americas” he said. “And now we are definitely north of 70% sales there.”
For Dimina, the success of the company’s expanding channel program will be measured in years, not in transactions. He said, ”Especially in the early days, if you are just trying to hit your quarter and make numbers, then you see the costs of the channel. But if you know what the benefit is to having partners out there, having partners in every region who are excited to work with Splunk,” then you can understand the value of spending the required funding to work with the channel. “You need someone who can actually bring advice. When I start talking to a team, my whole model is that partners bring Splunk to life. We need people who are out there who know our customers better than we do.”
For Splunk, its acquisition by Cisco propelled this progress because of Cisco’s deep partner efforts, he said.
“And then you take Cisco coming in, who is world-renowned for its partner program, that is an opportunity for us to get into more customers and markets,” said Dimina. “For me to go set up a partner program in the Middle East, that would take years.” But with Cisco’s existing partner relationships there, that legwork has already been done for Splunk, he added.
“In the past two quarters, we have landed more new customers than in the previous 36 months, and over 50% of them are partner-sourced,” he said. “So, the momentum we are having with partners, I think, there is a trust factor. They know that now we are part of Cisco and that this is a company that understands the channel.”
So, how has the Cisco integration unfolded since the March 2024 acquisition? And what feedback was he hearing from customers at .conf25?
“We are a year and a half into the integration with Cisco, and in the first six months, it was all the integration issues, and the [industry-wide] optics are that this slowed us down,” but the reality is much different, said Dimina. “We announced many new things and innovations; it has been a long time since I remember us announcing this much. And the subtext is that we are not actually slowing down, but we are accelerating the pace. That is really what the message is about. And I think customers are seeing that.”
Splunk’s Channel Evolution Continues
Another Splunk executive,
Mangesh Pimpalkhare, a senior vice president and general manager for Splunk Platform, told ChannelE2E that the company’s growing channel sales are an evolution of the path that it has been on in the last several years.
“We do continue to have substantial go-to-market sales efforts that are direct and that is not changing,” said. “But the natural expansion is actually to grow the partner and channel activity.”
Over his five years at Splunk, spanning both the pre- and post-Cisco periods, Pimpalkhare said he’s seen steady momentum in expanding the company’s technical, distribution, and strategic partnerships - all fueling its continued growth.
“It has been very energizing to go through this whole journey with no disruption, with basically a smooth transition and integration,” he said. ”We have stayed on the Splunk path and continue to deliver to that roadmap. We continue to grow with all those opportunities, but we are getting some great synergies with both companies.”
