DEVOPSdigest

GitLab announced its new global GitLab Partner Program to expand its market reach and empower customers to fully take advantage of the value of the GitLab platform through a community of services and technology partners.

The new program offers customers a one-stop shop for their business’s DevOps transformation combining GitLab’s expertise and unique, single application with the valuable services and technology solutions from its growing partner community.

The company kicked off its channel expansion in January with the hiring of Michelle Hodges as vice president global channels. With over 100,000 customers, GitLab is experiencing rapid growth, both in terms of new customers and average annual recurring revenue. The GitLab Partner Program creates significant growth and margin opportunities for partners, particularly in the delivery of partner services to customers. In place of a conventional tier or medallion structure used by traditional partner programs, GitLab focuses on partner relationships propelled by incentives and investments that will grow GitLab skills and capacity across the DevOps ecosystem.

“As businesses evolve their DevOps practices with a maturing lifecycle, we want to create an ecosystem of partners that can work together to create greater value for the customer,” said Michelle Hodges, VP of Global Channels at GitLab. “We’re fostering a partner community that is built on strategic relationships and creates an environment where every partner can contribute. We look forward to growing the program with our partners and building high value services for customers.”

With the launch of the GitLab Partner Program, the company is looking forward to building new strategic relationships to help more organizations utilize GitLab for their DevOps transformation. The program is offered in three tracks:

- Open: This track is best fit for resellers, integrators and other sales and services partners. Partners in this track will earn benefits and incentives for identifying new customers, new opportunities, and delivering services that drive the adoption and use of GitLab. Incentives are offered as product discounts, rebates and referral fees.

- Select: This track focuses on building strategic relationships with partners that strive to provide high value DevOps expertise and services to customers that drive the adoption and use of GitLab. Most of these partners will develop their own GitLab Practice to deliver professional, consultancy and advisory services and are expected to drive greater GitLab product recurring revenues.

- Technology: This track is for technology partners (independent software vendors) that are focused on complementary solutions through product integrations with GitLab. Technology partners are key to expanding GitLab customer solutions and capabilities through integrations with cloud platforms, Kubernetes, and legacy DevOps solutions.

“As we expand our partner program, we're building on our current strategic relationships with the largest cloud and Kubernetes providers,” said Brandon Jung, VP of Alliances at GitLab. “Our customers are looking for the right people, process and platforms to enable them on their digital transformations. Bringing this together as we build these partnerships is critical to meeting customer demands and enabling their achievements."

The GitLab Partner Program will build on its existing group of committed, knowledgeable partners that are passionate about optimizing their customers’ software development and the efficiencies and outcomes that will deliver.