Russian-based security vendor Kaspersky Lab has announced revisions to its North American deal registration program, effectively “doubling down” on its incentives for partners bringing new contracts to the table.
According to Christopher Doggett, Kaspersky’s vice president of North America channel sales, the enhancements have been in place since July 1st, but formal rollout was deferred until most partners could be updated on the plans.
“We've increased the financial incentives and specifically removed some of the criteria to make it easier for partners to register their opportunities,” explained Doggett. "Any sale for more than 50 nodes is now eligible for registration. There are no restrictions around technical certifications to sell the product or high-volume requirements."
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The program offers two tiers of rewards, one for partners who are strategically engaged with Kaspersky Lab’s sales organization on an ongoing basis and another for those who sell only occasionally, or are just becoming engaged with the program. The enhancements also extend to license renewals, offering the partner of record additional rewards on each renewal that they proactively pursue.
“Our deal registration rewards are about double what they were previously," continued Doggett. "Partners are now well into double digits in terms of the pricing control that they have on registered deals. We want to reduce partner-to-partner conflict in which one partner does all the legwork and another partner can swoop in on the deal and undercut them in the eleventh hour because the upstart has not invested time or other resources in the sales process."
“Deal registration offers significant protection to partners who go out and pursue the sale," said Karen Greer, president and CEO of Secure Content Technologies, a Cincinnati-based Kaspersky partner. "The numbers are significant enough to have a solid impact on our profitability. It's also easy to operate. You don't have to jump through 50 million hoops in order to register a deal, which can be pretty frustrating to our sales reps."
Kaspersky’s Doggett also noted that some partners tend to give away discounts because they think that tactic is necessary to remain competitive. The company's objective is to structure the program in a way that mitigates, if not eliminates, the necessity of that tactic.
Anything that helps to support channel margins is undoubtedly popular with the channel.
"We think this really puts their money where their mouth is," said Todd O’Bert, president and CEO of Productive Corp., a Minneapolis-based channel partner. "It's very important to partners who are generating demand from scratch and doing a lot of tactical education to get help from the vendor in maintaining margins. We spend more time hunting on behalf of vendors who have our back. That's who we’re going to build and invest with.”
PUBLISHED JULY 12, 2012
