Trend revamps Affinity programme

Trend Micro has revamped its channel programme and axed revenue-based reseller tiers, in favour of a score card system. 

The Affinity Partner programme (APP), will now consist of three levels of partner: Affinity, Affinity Plus and Affinity One. Previous the programme had four tiers, however the Authorised and Business Partner levels have been merger together to form the Affinity Plus level.

Anthony O’Mara, vice president sales and operations EMEA told CRN that Trend is aiming to take a step away from the competition with the Affinity programme. “Most other vendors’ programmes are revenue-based, but we wanted to tier our resellers by using a range of criteria. We decided to have a score card system where we can select the applicable level for each partner using criteria such as competence, complimentary product and future potential. We wanted to move away from the revenue based systems of our rivals.”

The APP will also include deal registration, which O’Mara claimed would help protect deals for VARs who register them with the vendor online, a finders programme, lead tracking and preferential pricing. “We want to keep more margin in the channel, there is no point in just discounting the product, resellers don’t gain from this. We also have a very robust distributor rebate system too.”

Mark Hatton, managing director of Trend distributor Sphinx, said: “The programme has been received well by all our partners. The finders fee element is very good, as is the deal registration, other vendors are also moving to this.”

Blue bucks the Trend in broadline strategy shift

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