CA Ups ARCserve Margins To Spur VAR Demand Generation
The software vendor has increased margins for new product sales and competitive replacements and quickened its response time to requests for deal registration for its ARCserve storage software business line, said Adam Famularo, senior vice president and general manager for CA's recovery management and data modeling business unit.
The company has introduced new product bundles to help customers save money as well.
The new program includes incentives for distributors, solution providers, customers and internal sales reps, Famularo said. "We want to make them all more tied together," he said.
And, unlike most channel programs from CA or any vendor, the new incentives are set up for the long term, Famularo said.
"What usually happens with us, or with other vendors, is that a program is run for three months and then disappears," he said. "This time, we've put a real stake in the ground. I've planned for and budgeted for 15 months. All my marketing dollars and sales promotions are behind this program. My entire promotion and marketing budget is focused on paying out on the program or on running the program."
For solution provider sales reps used to making an average 10 percent commission on selling products, CA is incenting them with two new margin enhancements, Famularo said.
First, for a competitive replacement, CA will give the rep an additional 25 percent margin. "I want to make it easy for the sales rep," he said. "When a customer asks for new software, the rep should remember to say, 'Can I show you this from CA?' "
Second, CA is bumping up the margin for new product sales to 26 percent, he said.
Solution providers will now find it easier to register deals, Famularo said. "If they register the deal online, they'll get a response within 24 hours," he said. "Or, if they need to register it immediately, they can call a 1-800 number and get it right away."
Once the deal is registered, the solution provider gets a 12-percent rebate on the deal, even if it loses the deal, Famularo said.
"Win or lose the deal, the solution provider company gets a 12 percent rebate," he said. "The company can keep the rebate, or filter it to the rep. All they have to do is register the deal. So we're making it profitable for the reseller's reps and its execs."
The minimum deal size for the competitive replacement margin is $2,500, or about one-fourth that of CA's competitors. The minimum size for the new product sales margins is $5,000, or about one-half of the competitor's, Famularo said.
CA's primary competition comes from Symantec, he said.
Todd O'Bert, president and CEO of Productive, a Minneapolis-based software solution provider and CA partner, said that with the new CA program, Famularo is really saying his company wants a bigger part of the marketplace.
"They're saying, 'Hey, we've got great technology, and we're taking the message to partners and users,' " O'Bert said." And now they're putting their money where their mouth is."
The enhancements to CA's program make a compelling story for partners, O'Bert said. "They're providing incentives to lead with CA," he said. "And what they're offering is a great value for the customer."
The CA program makes sure the channel is incented to generate demand, O'Bert said. "Other programs don't have this incentive," he said. "This lets our guys go out and bid on more new business."
CA also has increased the amount of money distributors can make on deals through the channel, and made it easier for distributors to create their own channel programs around ARCserve, Famularo said.
"We're giving distributors money to help get new partners and get old partners back into working with us," he said. "For partners who are not yet at the silver level or better, we let the distributors manage them until they can go to the silver level, at which time we help. We really want to get the masses back to CA, and in our mind, this is the best way to do it."
On the customer side, CA introduced the Extra Value Pack, a software bundle that includes ARCserve together with two copies of its XOsoft Replication software and its SRM reporting tools, which help monitor and report on disk capacity and utilization. As a bundle, the software is offered at about a 70 percent discount, Famularo said.
In May, CA plans to bundle its ARCserve and XOsoft 12.5, a new version that is slated to include deduplication, storage resource management, enhanced virtualization capabilities, and Linux and Unix support, he said.
Famularo said that CA has been quietly rolling out the program since January.