New Kofax Program Promotes Partner Wares

Image-capturing leader Kofax wants its network of Certified Solution Providers (CSPs) to benefit from the "network effect."

Thanks to a new program launched last month, the vendor's leading channel partners can now use the same Kofax reseller network to sell and promote solutions they've built on the Kofax Ascent Capture platform.

Kofax can help CSPs find potential as well as help them enter new markets.

"We wanted to give our top performers a vehicle to promote their own solution within our internal sales organization, as well as a way to cross-pollinate with other resellers in their peer community," said Mike Morper, director of product marketing at Kofax, irvine, Calif. "We are trying to give our resellers an opportunity to sell their domain expertise into a larger universe."

Under the new Ascent Solution Developer Program, Kofax's internal sales organization will help Gold- and Platinum-certified partners spread the word about their specific offerings. Before they can tap into the network, however, resellers must implement their solutions at least three times—preferably with customers willing to be referenced. "That gives all of our resellers confidence that this is a compelling, repeatable solution," Morper said. Once CSPs meet that hurdle, Kofax can help them market their wares. "We could help a regional reseller package a solution and sell it to France, for example," he said. "Typically, we will hook up the partners, give them the contact information and then back out."

For its part, Kofax partner Image Integration Systems (IIS) hopes to tap into Kofax's network to promote its own DocuSphere Workflow and Content Manager software. "This program is a great way for us to take our product back to the Kofax channel, find others whose customers use SAP or PeopleSoft, and apply workflow, content management and integration," said Ron Kelley, vice president of sales for the Perrysburg, Ohio-based company.

IIS' DocuSphere software acts as a bridge between Kofax's Ascent for Payables module and ERP applications from SAP and PeopleSoft. "An ideal customer runs PeopleSoft or SAP, with a large accounts operation that has some centralized accounting but decentralized approval for invoices and payments," Kelley said.

Morper said about 100 out of 1,100 Kofax CSPs could qualify for the program.