Juniper Adds New Partner Resources

Despite enabling the addition of more services, Pataky said both Juniper and its partners have to retool their sales mindset to ensure there are the appropriate sales resources and opportunities for upselling and cross selling.

"You can have a great professional services organization but if you can't engage at that level it doesn't matter the stable of professional services you have," he said.

Overall, Pataky said, the new resources and program helps partners better understand and device a go-to-market strategy.

Partners said the new tools and resources broaden their abilities and can ultimately help Juniper advance on the competition.

"These programs put meat on the bone," said Phil O'Reilly, CEO of Solunet, a Melbourne, Fla.-based solution provider. "Juniper is telling partners 'we'll step up if you step up.'"

O'Reilly added that by letting partners lead with their own branding and creating resources to help enable that, Juniper is differentiating itself in the market.

"As a company, Juniper continues to go to extraordinary lengths to support its partners' efforts to develop comprehensive end-users relationships," he said. "The constant innovation of new J-Partner programs maximizes our profit opportunity with Juniper products. What makes them so unique is the fact that they reward partners on the value they provide and the services they deliver versus the volume of products they sell."

Dave Gilden, partner with Tampa, Fla.-based solution provider Acuity Solutions, said the new resources will make it easier for Acuity staff to get up to speed from a technical perspective and cut the amount of time it takes to go to market with new offerings.

"It condenses the amount of time it takes to get us ramped up, which saves us money," he said. "The tools that they made available are very advanced and can help me save and make money."