Larger partners are increasingly favouring vendors with a sustainability component to their partner programmes to help them win tenders, Zebra’s EMEA channel boss has claimed.
Zebra is the latest in a growing line of vendors to add a sustainability badge to their partner schemes, following similar moves from the likes of HP, Cisco, Dell and Lenovo.
The $4.6bn-revenue vendor’s new Sustainability Partner Recognition Programme is designed to acknowledge ISV and hardware resellers who implement Zebra solutions to achieve sustainable outcomes.
To qualify, partners must demonstrate a minimum of three new sustainability solution deployments.
In return they receive a sustainability recognition logo they can use in their marketing, communications and RFP proposals and a dedicated identifier in Zebra’s Partner Locator platform.
Zebra says it will also provide them with joint marketing resources, discretionary marketing development funds, and training on corporate and product initiatives.
“When you are a big partner a lot of new tenders are coming out, for instance from big retailers and T&L [transport and logistics] organisations, and sustainability is always a request,” Lars Schmermbeck, Senior Director Channel Sales, EMEA at Zebra Technologies, told IT Channel Oxygen.
“You see a lot of point systems when you get into a tender. The weight given to sustainability is getting more and more important. So our bigger partners are very focused on working with vendors which have a sustainability programme and which can answer these questions.”
Surplus food marketplace Too Good To Go is the first to qualify as a recognised Zebra Sustainability Partner.
Schmermbeck billed the scheme as just the latest staging post in Zebra’s wider sustainability strategy (its executive briefing centres in Bern and London boast ‘green corners’ showcasing its sustainable solutions, for instance – see below).
Sustainability partner badges are becoming a more common site, with HP launching Amplify Impact in 2021 and Lenovo its 360 Circle programme last year. Cisco has also introduced an Environmental Sustainability Specialism, while Dell added a Sustainability Competency to its partner programme in February.
“I think we all have one direction,” Schmermbeck said.
“Our partner programme is very focused on cooperation. If you are in our Sustainability Recognition Programme you will be marked in our partner locator as a sustainable partner, so this gives you an advantage in the market. I think we all have slightly different approaches, but we are all driving in the same direction.”
