Symantec revamps its partner incentive program
Cybersecurity company, Symantec, has completely revamped its partner program and is taking a new partner strategy to market, according to the company’s global partner sales senior vice-president, John Thompson.
Thompson told ARN it has consolidated its partner incentive programs into a single platform called SecureOne. It was created for resellers, solution providers, and distribution partners.
“It’s designed by security partners, for security partners. Previously, we had so many distributor partner programs across the world and now, that all comes down to one common program,” he mentioned.
The main purpose for this, according to Thompson, was to simplify the program by moving from 11 competencies to just four – namely end-point protection and mobility; information protection; cybersecurity services; and threat protection.
“We’ve also streamlined the competency requirements because partners want access to core competencies, the incentives and effective training. So, we’ve reduced their number of training hours by 56 per cent.”
Predictability was also another factor that Thompson brought up. He claimed that instead of an all or nothing profitability proposition model that the old programs used to have, the SecureOne partner incentive model will boast multiple dollar values as they work towards a target.
“In the old program, if partners hit the target, they were happy but if they didn’t, they got nothing. In the new program, they’re paid along the way to the target, which is good news for the partner. If they overachieve on a target, there is also an accelerator for that,” he added.
In addition, the program streamlines competencies and training, increases accelerators and payments for new businesses opportunities, as well as aligns to the company’s sales force and end-user accounts.
“We tweaked the program as we wanted one that was around our core product portfolio and what was important to our customers. The four competencies are the four pillars of Symantec,” Thompson added.
He also indicated that the company will be increasing its focus on its virtual training and PERKS security services in a box program in the coming months.
“It helps them build a security services practice, and we enable them to do that. Our partners are core to our go-to-market strategy.”
Symantec will be revisiting the partner program in six months to provide consistency, and will be looking to reward and enhance aspects of the program according to changes in the industry in terms of new technologies and advancements.
“It’s a good opportunity for Symantec and our partners to re-engage as we provide technology and solutions to the vertical reach, application expertise, and industry knowledge that our partners have,” he indicated.
The company has also launched its new Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solution that detects and remediates advanced threats across control points, from a single console with no new endpoint agents to deploy.
It correlates suspicious activity across all control points and prioritises the events that pose the most risk to an organisation. Once a critical threat is identified, it quickly contains it and blocks new instances.
“Virtually every industry is under attack right now, that’s the bad news but the good news is, it provides opportunity for our partner community. They can reach out to their customers on the endpoint and upsell to them the ATP product by triangulating across e-mail, endpoint and network,” he said.
Symantec ATP will be available by end of calendar year 2015.
