Everything you need to know about the new AWS Partner Central
It’s finally here! AWS Partner Central 2.0 was announced last week, and AWS alliance leads all over the world couldn’t be more excited! So what should we expect from the new partner central, and how will it change the way alliance managers are used to working with the portal?
What is the AWS Partner Central?
The AWS Partner Central is the main tool for alliance leads to cooperate with AWS, share opportunities, apply for credits, read all the relevant resources for a successful partnership, and more.
The AWS Partner Network (APN) is a global program designed to help technology and consulting partners build successful businesses around the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. The APN helps partners build, market, and sell their solutions by providing them with training, resources, and technical support. Partners in the APN range from startups to global enterprises, and they include a variety of different types of organizations, such as consulting firms, system integrators, independent software vendors, and managed service providers.
In order to utilize all the advantages of the APN program, partners collaborate with AWS via the AWS Partner Central. The Partner Central has an enormous amount of information about AWS and partnership opportunities, and also hosts what many consider to be the heart of the alliance with AWS — the ACE Pipeline Manager. This is where partners and AWS reps can share information about new opportunities and collaborate on them.
What was the problem with the “Old” Partner Central?
The Partner Central was extensive, and although you could find a bunch of different manuals and resources to help you navigate through it, many agree that it wasn’t intuitive for users. For example, the menu wasn’t optimized for the needs of the partners’ journey, and it wasn’t clear where partners could find certain information/fields in order to advance in their partnership.
On top of that, the old design of the Partner Central started to feel a bit outdated and wasn’t aligned with the familiar design of the rest of the AWS tools/website.
Moreover, the number of roles is limited and doesn’t include all the roles in an organization that might take part in developing the AWS partnership. The existing roles were limited to Alliance Teams, ACE users, and Channel Management users. In feedback, many partners expressed their need for additional staff members to be included in the Partner Central, such as Marketing.
What should we expect in the new Partner Central?
New site navigation
One of the biggest improvements in the new Partner Central is a completely new site navigation and menu structure that aligns perfectly with the build, market, sell partner journey.
For the sake of comparison, here is what the old menu bar looked like:
And here is what the new menu looks like:
The most noticeable changes are the addition of “Build”, “Market”, “Sell” and “Channel”.
The new menu makes it clear that in the process of building the new Partner Central, the AWS teams put themselves in the shoes of their partners and made sure that the UX would match their needs and goals.
New and improved look
Although many would argue that “looks aren’t everything”, the new look of the AWS Partner Central is a breath of fresh air compared to the older version! The AWS Partner Central 2.0 is finally consistent with the design of all the other AWS tools (such as their commercial website, marketplace, and console).
Not one, but two new roles
Probably one of the most awaited improvements — partners can now add on top of the existing roles two new roles: Technical Staff and Marketing Staff. On top of that, AWS Partner Central 2.0 can now enjoy a personalized experience based on their assigned user role, AWS path, and stage.
And so much more!
Faster load times and in-app guidance are just a few of the additional features introduced in the latest announcement. To learn more, I recommend going through the AWS Partner Central 2.0 overview video and manual.
Early Adopter can enjoy it as soon as now!
Release 1 started rolling out last Thursday, January 5, 2023. Accounts should be automatically converted on the basis of their highest Partner Path stage:
- January 5: Registered and Enrolled partners
- January 19: Confirmed and Validated partners
- February 2: Differentiated partners
However, if you are as eager to start playing around with the new portal as I am, all Alliance Leads will be able to onboard their company early to the 2.0 experience, regardless of path stage,
The final sunset date of the “old” Partner Central will be on March 31, 2023.
AWS also announced that The next AWS Partner Central 2.0 release (expected by the end of Q1) will include UX and performance improvements to the ACE Pipeline Manager’s opportunity management pages — which might be the change we are all waiting for to update and upload opportunities to the ACE easily.
What I hope for the future
I believe that the new Partner Central is just the beginning of the improvements needed for the partners’ experience on the Partner Central. I hope that in the new ACE pipeline, we’ll also see changes in the update of existing opportunities, notifications and my biggest wish for the AWS Partner Central — a native integration with the partners’ CRM (e.g Salesforce or Hubspot).
Though these might seems small, each improvement results in salespeople and alliance leads investing more time in building the partnership itself and enabling the launch of the opportunity, instead of wasting precious time trying to understand the ins and outs of the ACE pipeline and Partner Central.