Juniper Networks wants its partners to fast-track to its new Elite Plus level.
UK&I channel director Dale Smith said his outfit had a narrow service provider-oriented channel which was profitable and healthy but not enterprise-centric.
“Our mission statement then became to transform the channel from a service provider-centric to an enterprise channel and go to market model.”
Smith said it took significant investment in partner recruitment to help drive their enterprise pivot and now that part of the company is its largest revenue generating unit in the company.
“That gives us the foundation at board level to write some very big checks internally and say, ‘Hey, we want to invest even more to accelerate, we want our partners to be more profitable We want them to be more incentivised, and we want them to be more focused on the opportunity ahead for the next three years, as we look to double our business,” he said.
Enterprise work was outstripping the smaller SMB service provider market for Juniper. In the UK market the enterprise segment grew by 25 per cent year on year. And globally, partners delivered 60 per cent growth for Juniper.
“So we recognise that [partners] are key to driving up growth going forward. So we want to continue these investments, we really want to make sure that we’re giving you a more profitable go to market as we move forward,” Smith said.
The ‘Elite Plus’ tier of the JPA programme is Juniper’s top-tier.
“We’ve invested more in community tools, increasing rebates, and simplifying, because we are sometimes a little challenging on certifications to make sure that [partners] have the best tools available to go forward,” Smith said.
For 2023, Smith said Juniper plans to keep the investments going, by increasing distribution resources, more marketing personnel and “more feet on the street.”
“We need more salespeople; we need to ensure that we’re really reinforcing the amount of account managers out there that are really helping you with the prospects and customers that we have. And we’re increasing those as part of what we call a Juniper Enterprise Acceleration Programme, which essentially means investing in people,” Smith said.
