Show Notes
When Mandy Dhaliwal arrived at Nutanix as Chief Marketing Officer, she quickly noticed something missing in the company’s go-to-market story. For a business that runs 100 percent of its revenue through partners, partner marketing hadn’t yet earned its rightful seat at the center of the marketing engine. That realization launched a transformation – not just of how Nutanix markets, but of how it orchestrates the entire ecosystem. “Part of my mission was to bring the partnering aspect of what we do closer to the center of the marketing orbit,” Mandy told me at the CMO Huddles SuperHuddle in Palo Alto. Bringing Partner Marketing to the Core Today, Nutanix is a multi-billion-dollar hybrid-multicloud software leader with more than 30,000 customers and thousands of employees worldwide. Its business depends on a global network of channel partners, OEMs, and strategic alliances that bring Nutanix solutions to market. Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Early in her tenure, Mandy saw that these partners needed to be embedded in every launch, campaign, and demand program – not looped in afterward. “A hundred percent of our business goes through the channel,” she said. “We’re a software vendor that partners with every major server vendor out there. So partners have to be right there alongside us in everything we do.” Two Distinct Playbooks: Channel vs Alliances As Nutanix scaled, Mandy and her team realized that “partners” weren’t one monolithic group. Each type required a different motion – and different metrics for success. 1️⃣ Channel Partners – Extension of the Sales Force For the channel, Nutanix treats partners as a true extension of its own sales organization. Every campaign, product launch, and enablement program mirrors what the internal sales teams receive. “There’s no wall between us,” Mandy explained. “The campaigns we build and the launches we do include the channel teams from the start. They get the exact same materials and blueprints that our direct teams use.” This approach ensures consistency in message, positioning, and execution. Whether a deal comes through a direct rep or a partner, the story and experience for the customer remain unified. It’s a simple premise – but in practice, it’s a major cultural shift. Instead of treating partner marketing as a derivative function, Mandy’s team now integrates it into every major go-to-market motion. 2️⃣ Alliances and OEMs – Interoperability as the Core Value For OEMs and strategic alliances, however, the playbook looks very different. Here, the marketing strategy centers on interoperability – demonstrating how Nutanix and partners like Dell, HPE, Cisco, Pure Storage, and Nvidia work together to create seamless, high-performance environments. “We wouldn’t be able to go to market without the interoperability of our solutions,” Mandy said. “With the server vendors, it’s a different play. We’re selling on those servers. With the strategic alliance partners, we’re powering AI factories and joint blueprints that go to market together.” These partnerships rely on joint development and co-marketing, where Nutanix’s platform becomes the connective tissue enabling partners’ hardware or cloud systems to deliver more value. Rather than simply extending Nutanix’s reach, these alliances extend the solution itself – creating new categories of demand where both companies share the stage. Building the Partner Playbook Across both playbooks, Mandy’s team follows a repeatable structure that begins with enablement. Before a campaign hits the market, both sides’ sales and marketing teams invest in deep training and messaging alignment. “We start with enablement,” she said. “Our teams enable the partners – and vice versa – so everyone understands what we’re selling, to whom, and why.” From there, Nutanix and its partners co-create campaigns, appear together at major events like AWS re:Invent and D
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