Symantec unveils partner overhaul
Updated partner programme classifies firms by competency to reward those that generate opportunities for vendors
Seal the deal: Symantec partners will now be classified by registered deal, rather than raw revenue
Symantec partners have 12 months to migrate to a new-look partner programme that will classify them by the size of their registered deal pipeline and their degree of specialisation.
In a move symptomatic of the wider industry, the vendor has done away with raw revenue thresholds as it migrates to a competency-based partner programme.
Having been 18 months in the making, the programme was launched on Wednesday but Jason Ellis, EMEA channel vice president at Symantec, stressed that partners will have 12 months to adjust.
“If they are Platinum today, they will be Platinum next week but they will also have a status in the new programme,” he said. "But I would encourage them to look at the new programme ASAP as the colour of the conversations Symantec's marketing and inside teams are having are already moving towards specialist partners."
Ellis said that the more successful partners are at generating opportunities for Symantec, the further they will rise, and claimed that the deal registration thresholds were sympathetic.
Ellis said the thresholds would vary between countries and was unable to give exact numbers for the UK. But as a rough example, a Platinum partner previously required to do $5m (£3m) in annual revenue may now have to register $1m worth of deals, he said.
“They are reasonable and won’t trouble a lot of our Platinum partners,” Ellis said.
Top-level partners will also have to hold several of Symantec’s 10 new solution specialisations, but again this will vary by country.
These include Enterprise Security, Data Protection, High Availability and Storage Management.
Symantec already has an opportunity registration programme but Ellis said it would go further for partners who are accredited on its specialisations by protecting incremental business with an extra front-end discount.
“If they need to lower the pricing by 25 per cent, that partner is the only partner to get the discount,” he said.
Solution specialists will need two sales experts, two pre-sales experts and two technical specialists. Ellis said Symantec would make sure each partner had the ability to execute on their specialisations by assessing their “field readiness”.
“We can verify if they have the skills and if they don’t, we can train them.”
Symantec pointed out that partners may already possess qualifications towards specialisations.
Scott Haddow, chief executive of Symantec Platinum partner Trustmarque, said many vendors were focusing on registered deals. Trustmarque itself recently appointed two staff dedicated to registering deals, he said.
“When you have delivered a professional engagement it is frustrating if someone cuts the margin and wins the deal. What Symantec is doing is sensible and most vendors are doing it.”
He also welcomed the emphasis on specialisation. “It gets away from the
high-volume, transactional reseller,” he said.