Enablers are tools and resources designed to assist partners in their journey to achieve Expertise and build core capabilities to serve their end customers. When selecting a track, partners receive access to a set of enablers (specific to each track), including access to environments, skills transfer, technical assistance, sales and marketing resources, and more.

The Build, Sell, and Service Tracks in the Oracle PartnerNetwork all focus on enablement with Oracle Cloud, but with a different focus across the customer value chain. The Build Track is best suited to partners that develop commercially available software or service solutions that are built on and optionally integrated with Oracle Cloud technologies. Enablers are provided to the partner to facilitate this development and identify and select solutions based on our joint customers’ needs. The Sell Track provides targeted enablement for partners who resell Oracle Cloud products and address customers’ needs to purchase Oracle Cloud products. Finally, the Service Track is for partners that specialize in any aspect of a customer's cloud adoption lifecycle, ranging from assessment, implementation, migration, and upgrade to ongoing management, operation and continuous optimization of cloud-based services. Partners are encouraged to join one or more of these tracks based on their business model.

• Video: Selecting the Right Track for Your Business (3:01)

There are no requirements to participate in the Build Track other than paying the track fee. However, there are recommended trainings and certifications by role that enhance a partner’s ability to develop commercially available software or service solutions that are built on and optionally integrated with Oracle Cloud technologies.

In addition to the core OPN Member benefits, the Build Track provides several enablers designed to help a partner go-to-market with their software or as-a service hosted solution built on with Oracle Cloud technologies. These enablers include access to an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure environment for testing, development and demonstration purposes. In addition, partners in the Build Track will receive extensive skills transfer opportunities including role-based learning paths via Oracle University Cloud Learning Subscriptions (CLS) and can optionally subscribe to Oracle Cloud SaaS applications for the development, testing, and demonstration of their integration solutions.

There are no requirements to participate in the Service Track other than paying the track fee. However, to unlock the go-to-market benefits of the track, partners must first achieve Expertise to ensure they have the necessary skills and certifications to successfully architect, implement, and manage Oracle Cloud solutions that deliver on their customers’ needs.

In addition to the baseline OPN Member benefits, the Service Track provides several enablers in the areas such as cloud environment/licensing, skills transfer, technical assistance, sales and marketing tools, and joint partner success initiatives designed to facilitate the go-to-market initiatives for our joint customers' implementation, deployment and managed services for Oracle Cloud. These enablers include access to Oracle cloud environments for testing, development and demonstration purposes. In addition, partners in the Service Track will receive exclusive access to an OPN Technical Assistance Community Forum for development and integration partners, along with extensive skills transfer opportunities including role-based learning paths via Oracle University Cloud Learning Subscriptions (CLS).

There are no requirements to participate in the Industry Healthcare Track other than paying the track fee. However, to unlock the go-to-market benefits of the track, partners must first achieve Expertise, to ensure they have the necessary skills and certifications to successfully develop commercially available products and/or services built on or integrated with Oracle Health.

In addition to the core OPN Member benefits, the Industry Healthcare Track provides several baseline enablers designed to support the technical and business readiness needs for partners to go-to-market with Oracle Health technologies. These enablers include access to an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure environment for testing, development, and demonstration purposes, extensive skills transfer opportunities including role-based learning paths via Oracle University Cloud Learning Subscriptions (CLS), and the option to subscribe (for an additional fee of $14,500) to Oracle Cloud SaaS applications for the development, testing, and demonstration of their product offerings. In addition, partners in the Industry Healthcare Track have access to an Oracle Health Millennium Platform Environment for a fee of $5,000 (USD) that provides an additional development, testing, and demonstration resource for the duration of the membership period based upon the business needs of the partner.

Partners who focused on services for the software license and hardware portfolio are well suited to join the License & Hardware Track, with enablers intended to support partners’ ability to support their current business. As partners’ and our joint customers’ business evolves to focus more on cloud, License and Hardware track provides access to cloud environments as well.

There are no requirements to participate in the Sell Track other than paying the track fee. However, to unlock the go-to-market benefits of the track, partners must first achieve Expertise to ensure they have the necessary skills and certifications to successfully resell Oracle Cloud solutions that address their customers’ needs. Each Sell Track Expertise has its own unique set of qualifiers as outlined in the Expertise Catalog.

In addition to the core OPN Member benefits, the Sell Track provides several enablers in the areas of environment/licensing, skills training, technical assistance, sales and marketing, and partner success designed to facilitate the go-to-market process for reselling Oracle Cloud.

The ability to achieve cloud product resell rights in the program is tied to the Cloud Sell Expertise achievement. Besides executing the Master Distribution Agreement (MDA) with the Cloud Services Distribution Addendum (CSDA), partners are required to attain a Cloud Sell Expertise in order to distribute the respective products tied to that Expertise. Expertise in the Cloud Sell Track is achieved in a cloud service pillar by completing a series of qualifiers including Oracle Sales and Solution Engineer Specialists, certified professionals, customer successes, showcase of external commitment to Oracle and attainment within a specific regional market, among others.

Examples of Cloud Sell Expertise:

• Sell Expertise: Oracle Cloud Platform - North America
• Sell Expertise: Oracle ERP Cloud - Benelux
• Sell Expertise: Oracle HCM Cloud - Japan

Partners who wish to focus on reselling the license and hardware product portfolio in addition to cloud are encouraged to select both the Cloud Sell Track and the License & Hardware Track. The enablers provided as part each track would ensure partners are set up for achieving the requisite expertise based on their customer's needs.

Oracle recognizes that many of our partners and our joint customers have yet to embrace cloud fully for their enterprise needs. For such partners that continue to invest and serve their customers’ needs in On-Premises software license and hardware business as their primary area are encouraged to join the License & Hardware Track. In addition, License & Hardware track includes some Universal Cloud Credits as an Enabler for partners that are looking to transition to cloud gradually. However, partners who are interested in expanding focus on Oracle Cloud or Oracle Health portfolio are encouraged to join one of the cloud tracks (Cloud Build, Cloud Service and/or Cloud Sell) or the Industry Healthcare track, in addition to License and Hardware track to take full advantage of key benefits and enablers to deliver value for their customers.

Yes, a partner can implement their solution without participating in the Service Track, however, we will actively promote partners that have attained Service Expertise. Additionally, customers will be more inclined to select a partner with Service Expertise in order to mitigate their risk and increase the probability of having a positive implementation experience.

There are no requirements to select a track within Oracle PartnerNetwork. However, by selecting a track, partners get access to additional Enablers to accelerate execution of their go-to-market strategy. As an OPN member, which is typically where a partner's journey starts, you have access to essential benefits including the ability to resell Oracle 1-Click products, eligibility to publish listings of your Oracle applications in the Oracle Marketplace, access to Oracle 1-Click Product demonstration and development licenses, and more.

• Video: Selecting the Right Track for Your Business (3:01)

Expertise may be achieved in a product family, cloud service or use case deployment scenario by completing a series of qualifiers which include Oracle Specialists, certified or accredited professionals, customer successes, and showcasing external commitment to Oracle, among others. In order to qualify for Expertise, partners are required to select a track (Build, Sell, Service, Industry Healthcare or License & Hardware). Expertise qualifiers will be specific to each track and may include attainment within a specific regional market.

Examples of Expertise:

• Cloud Build Expertise: Powered by Oracle Autonomous Cloud
• Cloud Sell Expertise: Oracle Cloud Platform - North America
• Cloud Service Expertise: Oracle ERP Financials Cloud - Nordics
• Industry Healthcare Expertise: Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle Health Millennium Platform API
• License & Hardware Service Expertise: Oracle Exadata Database Machine

• Video: Why Achieve Expertise (1:51)

For certain cloud services within the Build and Service Tracks and for Oracle Health products and services, partners may attain Advanced Expertise by completing incremental qualifiers such as a number of go-lives, higher customer satisfaction ratings, and revenue thresholds or number of transactions, among other elements.

Expertise allows partners to demonstrate and showcase their skills and customer success around their products and services focus, which in turn unlocks incremental access to go-to-market benefits to further differentiate themselves from the competition. Expertise is achieved in a product family or cloud service by completing a series of qualifiers which include Oracle Specialists, certified or accredited professionals, customer successes, and showcasing external commitment to Oracle, among others. Expertise qualifiers are track-specific and may include attainment within a specific regional market. Also, resell rights are a benefit associated with Expertise attainment in both the Cloud Sell Track and the License & Hardware Track.

• Video: Why Achieve Expertise (1:51)

Yes, applicable previous accreditations and certifications are considered towards meeting new qualifiers within the Oracle PartnerNetwork program. However, some Expertise have additional defined qualifiers in the Oracle PartnerNetwork that partners are required to meet, such as additional accreditations and certifications along with the other elements.

Regional markets are designations which include a country or group of countries and are used for attainment and recognition of Expertise and Advanced Expertise in the Cloud Service Track and Cloud Sell Track. Partner entities in countries that share the same regional market may pool resources to meet Expertise qualifiers, so long as they are all Associates of the same Principal entity. Additionally, once an entity earns an Expertise, other entities within the same regional market may inherit the Expertise.

To align with the OPN program and industry best practices, we have renamed the Pre-Sales Specialist role to Solutions Engineer. All existing Pre-Sales Specialist badged resources will be updated to reflect the new naming convention.

Quality Project Management is a critical factor in a successful cloud implementation, therefore, in order to attain Cloud Service Expertise, a partner must have qualified project management resources that hold specific industry standard project management accreditations or have completed the Oracle Cloud Project Management Assessment (available May 15, 2020). Please review the qualifiers for the Cloud Service Expertise you are interested in attaining in order to prepare to meet them.

Customer Loyalty Index (CLI) is a metric generated from our joint customers' response to a customer success survey at a particular stage of the lifecycle in each track. The survey, composed of a short questionnaire, gauges a customer’s overall satisfaction throughout the engagement process with the partner

A successful implementation is determined by the customer and recorded via the Customer Satisfaction Survey, where a minimum Customer Loyalty Index (CLI) rating is required. It is based on the customers' direct feedback on their overall planning and implementation experience. Go-Lives can be submitted here. If you're an OPN partner upgrading to the OPN program, view the steps to accelerate your path towards Expertise and submit customer details for recent and relevant completed go-lives, in order to meet Service Expertise qualifiers.

Effective end-user adoption is the primary factor of success in a Cloud implementation project, and feedback through the lifecycle is the key to improving customer experience and success in cloud adoption. Customers will be surveyed based on their lifecycle stage, Oracle cloud solution (by project), and Oracle/Partner resource alignment.