The data protection player Veritas launched the latest version of its Partner Force programme to boost channel growth, particularly in the mid-market.
Jamie Farrelly, vice-president EMEA channels and mid-market sales at Veritas, had already devised a triple A strategy for this year to make sure the firm is in the best position to support partners that want to embrace its portfolio and meet customer needs around gaining insights into their data.
The outfit said it is working closely with those partners that have specialised around certain technologies and is encouraging the development of a network of experts that can deliver a bespoke service to customers.
The top 2,000 partners have been given a “white glove” programme with social nurturing and a handle on account-based marketing on what customers are talking about. A business development team, based in Dublin, will provide not just straightforward leads, but more detailed intelligence on customers and prospects to enterprise partners.
The vendor is working with distribution to support increased sales of its backup products, which can help customers with ransomware and protecting data. Veritas is offering customers extended trials of its software-as-a-service (SaaS) and desktop backup tools to help remote workers during the coronavirus crisis.
Farrelly said: “As an enterprise, high mid-market company, we deal with all the major partners we think we need to in the market and have relevance with them. We have continued to make sure we focus on fewer bigger bets as well as emerging areas, like MSPs.”
In the mid-market, platinum partners can also get up to 25 per cent in discounts in the margin-builder programme to encourage those that hunt for fresh customers.
Veritas is also planning to run promotions over the year to get the channel behind specific products, having successfully run one around backup at the end of Q4.
“In a lot of our key countries, we have lowered the threshold to become platinum”, said Farrelly. “Not only to help with the coming months, but also because there are a lot of gold partners that have got to a level of capability, that might be specialist players, that are massively important to our go-to-market. We want to make sure they reap the rewards of the platinum benefits.”
Farrelly said the partner programme was being underpinned by efforts on the product front, with more integration across its portfolio and the technology alliances it has to respond to customers that are continuing to press for more integration from their suppliers.
