Veritas Bolsters Partner Program

These new additions include a Channel Loyalty Program, which offers incentives to partners; a Sales Professional Program, for free sales training; a Focus Program, designed as an apprenticeship for new partners; and a Strategic Channel Partner Program, which offers specialized support for certain partners.

Veritas introduced these new pieces of its partner program during its annual Veritas Vision conference, held in Las Vegas, where about 296 partners registered to attend. About 55 percent of Veritas' overall revenue come from channel sales. Executives say they will continue to invest in the channel and expect that 55 percent will map directly to its growth of becoming a $5 billion a year software company.

"As we grow, we expect opportunities for our partners to grow," says Michael Sotnick, who became Veritas' new vice president of Partner Sales in January.

One of the most recent key changes Veritas made to its partner program was in reducing the number of its enterprise partners from 900 to 350 through the introduction of a formalized certification program in 2002. Executives say that reduction was by design institute integrity for a partner program that officially began in 2001 with some promotional programs and few barriers to entry.

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Today, the enterprise partners focus on selling mainly Veritas' Unix-based products, while the volume VARs, which number more than 5000, focus on selling volume-based products like Backup Exec.

Now Veritas introduced a Channel Loyalty Program, in which all VARs are eligible, that closely mirrors the airline industries frequent flyer programs. As an incentive, VARs get points for participating in training programs and selling Veritas products. Certain bonuses are tied to the number of points accumulated.

The Sales Professional Program also is open to all partners. It's a training program that combines Webcast, CD, online and local instructor-led courses for sales and presales personnel. Partners get rewards for completing courses and tests for each solution track that follows a particular expertise. For instance, there are training workshops for data protection for a Windows-based environment or a high availability training for a Unix-based environments.

"It's a much more organized approach to training than in the past," says Julie Parrish, Veritas' senior director of channel marketing.

The other two new programs -- the Focus Program and Strategic Channel Partner Program -- are targeted for certain VARs. The Focus program is designed as an apprenticeship piece for new VARs. Parrish says it's meant to put these partners on an accelerated path and help focus them so they can become integrated members of the Partner Program. The first step of this program is recruiting. Then they are put through training and sales calls before moving into the core partner program.

"We are investing earlier and heavier in these accounts," she says.

The Strategic Channel Partners aspect is designed for VARs who sell Veritas products, such as Hitachi Data Systems and StorageTek. Veritas wants to work more closely with these VARs by allowing them to qualify for things such as MDF funds and marketing resources.