Storage behemoth EMC is offering its distributors new resources to facilitate a higher margin, services-powered business model for resellers that work with its storage and backup solutions. More specifically  Data Domain storage, Avamar deduplication software, and VSPEX bundles: midmarket appliances that are based on EMC’s VNX and VNXe series unified storage hardware.

EMC’s Global Services division is providing training, assembly methodologies for multi-vendor environments and the support of its service business to accelerate the planning stage.  Distributors can then use these assets to put tailored solutions together more easily, which are then shipped to the VARs that get the sale. This way resellers can get to the deployment and configuration stage much faster, and as a result boost their bottom line.

“EMC’s new assembly services capability gives our Velocity distribution Partners a new opportunity to support their resellers by delivering solutions that are tailored to specific customer requirements,” said Daniel Coetsier, VP, Global Services, Channel and Partners, EMC. “Today’s announcement reinforces EMC’s commitment to our valued channel Partners worldwide. We will continue to add more programs and capabilities that provide our distributors and resellers with predictable and profitable ways to add value to their customers and help accelerate their IT and business transformations.”

The channel plays a very big role in EMC’s goals. The vendor announced plans to expand in China not too long ago via a long-term alliance with Lenovo that will involve some heavy investment in marketing and product development, which is expected to generate a lot of return as the market for cloud services and data center hardware in the region grows. CEO Yuanqing Yang promised investors the collaboration will be valued at the billions, although that’s pretty much everything that has been disclosed so far.