Exabeam Channel Chief On Driving ‘Highest-Level’ Profitability For Partners, New AI Tool

The SIEM vendor is shifting to a new discount strategy that provides solution and service providers with a bigger opportunity to boost profits, as well as launching a new AI tool to help partners better engage customers, Exabeam Global Channel Chief Craig Patterson tells CRN.

Exabeam is doubling down on partner profitability in 2026 as the SIEM vendor seeks to accelerate its growth with the help of solution and service provider partners, Exabeam Global Channel Chief Craig Patterson told CRN.

The major updates as of last month include a shift to a new discount strategy for partners in connection with Exabeam’s Apex Partner Program, which could increase profits for some solution providers by as much as 30 percent to 40 percent, according to Patterson.

Ultimately, Exabeam has begun offering three different “stackable” discounts, which “creates a situation where this is the highest-level discount we’ve ever given to partners,” he said.

Other major changes include introducing a three-tier system for the program, which previously did not have tiers, as a way to provide greater rewards for more committed partners, Patterson said.

In addition, the vendor is now rolling out a new AI-powered tool, Exabeam Sherpa, which can provide information about Exabeam products and answer questions that partners may have, he said.

Sherpa is also capable of providing real-time coaching to partners during customer calls, according to Patterson.

“Partners can invite Sherpa to calls with end-user customers, and it’ll give them real-time coaching,” he said. “So basically, if the customer gave [a certain] objection, [the partner would be advised to] talk to them about this feature functionality, or talk to them about this value proposition, or this use case.”

For MSSPs, Exabeam also debuted a new commercial model last month that provides a clear way for MSSPs to consume a single license and then allocate the license across its customer base.

Exabeam was recognized as one of six “leaders” on SIEM in Gartner’s most recent Magic Quadrant ranking for the category, released in 2025.

Below is more of CRN’s interview with Patterson.

What are the major themes of the recent updates to the Exabeam partner program?

Partners really want simplification. We’re seeing a lot of these new programs emerge that are requiring a tremendous amount of time, energy and investment by partners to achieve certain status or tiering. We’re taking a different approach. We’re taking a simple path. We’re giving partners the ability to select where they want to go, and we’re removing a lot of those friction points. When you look at the Gardner Magic Quadrant, and you look at some of the big, massive companies that fall in the upper right—they’ve chosen to go the opposite direction.

When you think about this new Apex program, it’s really a program built on competency. Instead of the traditional way of requiring certain revenue thresholds or commitments to achieve certain tiering status, we’re really looking at the ability for partners to achieve high-level certifications. The program is built based upon certifications. Partners that lean in, they take the training, they take the certification, they’re going to have the ability to achieve high-level tiering—which in turn, will give them the path to profitability, to achieve the highest-level margin. And so we’ve launched a brand-new certification track, both on the presales and post-sales side. All of those new certification tracks are now live in our unified portal.

This becomes a benefit for being in our program. In years past, we required monetary investment to achieve these certifications. Now we’re viewing this as a way of providing an added value benefit. So if you’re in the program, go take the training, we’re not going to require any cost associated with it.

What are some of the updates in terms of incentives and profitability?

The big thing that we’re moving toward is this brand-new discount framework. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been really strategically thinking through some of the friction points associated with the discounting framework. The problem that I came into when I started here is that the majority of our transactions were in this non-standard category, which basically meant partners didn’t have enough discount level to actually go transact. And so when we built this new framework it was a balancing act— No. 1, making sure we were empowering partners to have enough discount to drive to transaction, and then secondarily, you’ve got to balance that with making sure we’re hitting our acceptable gross margins. And so we’ve landed in a really good place where instead of 80 percent of our deals being non-standard, we believe in our new framework 80 percent will be able to flow through this discounting framework without going to a non-standard place. That creates a better partner experience because we’re not stuck in all these additional cycles of getting approvals. We’ll be quicker; we’ll be more efficient in getting this done.

How much bigger is the discount opportunity now compared to the past?

I’d say we’re in [the area of a] 30 [percent] to 40 percent increase. And again, a lot of it’s based upon the partner themselves. It’s almost choose your own adventure—you want the discount, go get the certificate.

The thesis is, obviously, we want to grow. So we believe by really providing these new financial incentives, the new discounting structure, we’re hoping to accelerate [the growth].

What are some other updates partners should know about?

We’re unveiling something we’re very excited about, and that’s called Exabeam Sherpa. That is our virtual CAM [customer account manager] strategy. We’ve been building this strategy over the past year, which is basically to provide an additional level of resourcing to all of our partners globally. We’ve ingested a lot of our use cases, our battle cards, the pre-ales and post-sales enablement, all the certification tracks—all of that has been ingested into this new model. Now, you have a model where partners can get access to real-time information. They can ask it questions. They can practice their pitch as well. It’ll give them feedback.

And then the thing we’re really excited about is it becomes a resource that’s on demand. Partners can invite Sherpa to calls with end-user customers, and it’ll give them real-time coaching. So basically, if the customer gave [a certain] objection, [the partner would be advised to] talk to them about this feature functionality, or talk to them about this value proposition, or this use case. It’ll give them real-time coaching during the call. And then where we’re going is we’re going to start to provide some clarification on ideal customers—so they can upload their customer profiles into Sherpa, and it will give them kind of clarity on these are the good customers that we should prioritize.

What’s your overall message to partners for 2026?

2026 is all about growth and execution. I kind of view 2025 as the build [year]. We spent the last year aligning all of our benefits, our value proposition, our discounting and incentives, to the overall market, to the partners’ feedback. Now, it’s go time. We’re here. We’ve got everything built, and now it’s all about executing and growing together.