Datadog APAC channel director on the company’s program overhaul and having a pro-partner sales team

As the observability company continues to grow, Eric Gaines discusses the partners’ role to play.

Observability platform Datadog has been in a growth phase, particularly in Australia as it hires new talent and is about to openup a new data centre, the company has its sights on Australian partners.

Speaking with Eric Gaines, channel alliances director APAC at Datadog at the AWS Summit in Sydney he said the observability company has gotten a “really good reception” from local partners.

“A lot of them are hearing from their clients as well, they're seeing their customers start to pick up Datadog, which creates a much easier path to onboard that partner, because they've already got that confidence they're not taking a swing on an unknown quantity,” he explained.

The recent announcement to launch their data centre has also strengthened ties with their technology partners, such as AWS.

“But for us, that also opens up new segments in the market, so going after regulated industries, financial services and government clients,” he said.

“That's got a direct impact into how we're going to work with partners, and the value that we can create with them, and the value that they can create for those clients as well.

“That's been a big accelerant of not just our licensing business here in Australia, but how our entire ecosystem comes together to help create the value chain for those clients.”

One of the encouraging aspects of Gaines’ role at Datadog is having a very pro-partner sales team that he has ever worked with.

“I worked at some very partner centric companies before, a lot of the investment that was going into our broader partnering function at Datadog was being demanded by our sales teams,” he explained.

“We focus on new client acquisition, one of the things that our go to market teams are good at are helping clients solve new problems and often landing new clients.

“Even a lot of our sellers say, 'I would really love to have some great relationships with people that understand us, understand how we help clients, to help amplify’.”

Gaines said Datadog doesn’t have the seller-to-channel conflict that characterises a few ISV businesses.

“For us, because we're winning lots of new clients, it mitigates a lot of that. Every time I ask for a headcount, my sales teams come back and say have two, we want to do more of this, which has been really encouraging,” he explained.

“A bit bewildering in honesty, because not many organisations work that way, but to me, was a real clear statement of intent from our sales leadership, you know, Rob Thorne, (VP APAC) level, down through our regional directors and our individual sellers are pro-partner.”

New partner program

One of the go-to-market plays Datadog made in 2024 was overhauling its partner program and now the program itself has evolved to a three-tier program, according to Gaines.

“Strong margins for partners reselling, but they're also trying to create something that was easy for partners to get started with,” he explained.

“They created effectively, a level playing field for partners, because we're in a growth mode, we're winning a lot of new clients, so the pie is growing. We wanted to have a program that was nice and simple for the partners to understand and for us to execute.”

Gaines said there was quite a few marketing investments and enablement behind the new program.

“Enablement has probably been the one thing that we've been strong in for a long time. We put some standardisation, some pathways around how that works for partners to come up to speed,” he added.

The reason for the overhaul was because the previous program was less oriented to joint selling.

“That was the thing we wanted to balance out was building technical delivery and professional services for partners to deliver but also helping them to work with the product sale and helping us with expansion,” he said.

“It's one of the things that our sales teams have been screaming out for as well, like, how do we get more partners to work with this in the go to market. A lot of it was creating a stronger, product incentive scheme for partners to take on and leave the sales as well as the delivery.”

When they re-launched the program, Gaines said things worked almost immediately.

“We saw a couple of partners that had enjoyed the technology once they saw the program changes were like, ‘this makes sense to me, this is something I can really lean into and do better business on’.

“We saw some of those partners start to lean in with us and be a lot more proactive in the product sales part of that partnership,” he added.

One of the biggest changes Gaines has noticed in the company is down to Datadog building out its team and hiring more people in its partner team.

"In ANZ, the team is three times the size it was, that will continue, and it's having the people there to help find the right partners, onboard them, give them that white glove treatment, help them with the selling and enablement, and then configuring them with our teams,” he said.

Gaines also acknowledges their local partner managers who help their sales team how to have a consistent partnership.

“They get the most out of it, but also that our partners have a consistent experience, and that we know how to jointly message to clients,” he said.

“A lot of that was client feedback as well. Our people would call in and they'd say, ‘we've got this great partner can you work with them?’

“The sales teams would say, ‘okay’, but they're doing it themselves, in honesty, because they didn't have as big of a partner team.”

Gaines noted that this has changed now they’ve got “got quality people on board”.

“We've got full coverage nationally, in different partner segments. That's made a big difference to our team and definitely to the partners,” he ended.