‘We want to increase channel involvement to 80 per cent’: Jitterbit CEO

Mark Logan exclusively reveals details of Jitterbit’s revamped Catalyst Partner Program as the vendor targets 80 per cent channel involvement and further European expansion

Jitterbit has eliminated compensation-related conflict between its direct sales teams and channel partners as part of a wider revamp of its go-to-market strategy under president and CEO Mark Logan.

The vendor is also preparing to unveil its revamped Catalyst Partner Program, the official name of which has been confirmed exclusively by Logan to CRN ahead of its public announcement.

The scheme will introduce increased partner margins, revised sales incentives and measures to eliminate channel conflict between the vendor’s direct sales teams and partners.

“We’ve eliminated any channel conflict in terms of compensation with our sales reps,” Logan tells CRN.

The changes form part of the firm's expansion strategy that includes tripling Jitterbit’s global partner base over the next 12 months and increasing channel involvement from well under 50 per cent of its business to between 70 and 80 per cent over the coming years.

“So many vendors put their direct sales teams against their partners and you can’t have that because direct sellers won’t move business through the channel.”

Catalyst relaunch tackles margins and partner renewals

The revised Catalyst Patner Programme is designed to address feedback from partners about unclear margin structures and competition with Jitterbit’s direct sales organisation.

Alongside making sales compensation neutral between direct and channel-led transactions, the organisation is increasing margins for partners and introducing clearer distinctions between different levels of involvement.

Partners that source opportunities will receive different margins from those simply fulfilling transactions, while partners that source, transact and implement projects will qualify for the highest level of incentives.

Logan says these thresholds will be published, allowing partners to understand their potential returns before pursuing opportunities.

He also acknowledges that Jitterbit had not previously communicated its margins clearly enough.

The vendor is now seeking to protect partners’ ability to retain customer relationships beyond the initial transaction, including contract renewals.

“We want to guarantee a lifetime relationship for our partners, provided the customers being supported, etc.”

Another change requires Jitterbit’s account executives to identify and recruit suitable partners within their territories, rather than focusing exclusively on their individual sales targets.

“Their job is not just to hit their quota but to go off and find regional partners in their collective regions and bring them forward and promote them.”

Logan adds that these changes were introduced during his first months in the role, alongside the appointment of Chris Stoddard as CRO.

He describes Stoddard as a channel-friendly appointment and says further changes to Jitterbit’s global or regional leadership remain under consideration.

The new CRO replaces Luca Taglioretti, who previously toldCRN that MSPs were a growing and strategic part of its network.

Jitterbit targets 80 per cent channel involvement

Despite its renewed channel focus, Logan acknowledges that Jitterbit currently generates too little business through partners.

He estimates that partner involvement currently accounts for well under 50 per cent of the company’s business.

This includes opportunities sourced or fulfilled by distributors, recommended by systems integrators, implemented by VARs or delivered through OEM relationships.

“It’s probably well under 50 per cent. I want that to get up to 70 to 80 per cent where there’s partner and channel involvement,” he says.

Logan wants the company to surpass 50 per cent partner involvement within the next 12 months before increasing that proportion by approximately 10 percentage points annually.

“We’ve got to eclipse 50 per cent touched by the channel in the next 12 months and then I want to start chipping away another ten per cent tranche every year.”

But Logan does not expect Jitterbit to become an entirely indirect business.

He explains that certain customers, particularly in regulated sectors such as utilities, require direct contractual relationships.

Even in those cases, he believes partners can continue to participate in implementation and services work.

In markets where Jitterbit has a limited direct presence, the company intends to make channel-led sales mandatory.

UK leads European expansion

The UK is Jitterbit’s largest European market and will remain an important part of the company’s expansion strategy.

During his visit to London, the CEO met with a channel partner whose existing business with Jitterbit remains relatively small but which he believes offers considerable growth potential.

The partner is embedding Jitterbit into its own tech offering, reflecting the vendor’s wider strategy of working with OEMs alongside distributors, VARs and systems integrators.

Jitterbit also works with BMC Helix, which Logan identifies as an important relationship supporting its European customer base.

The company recently signed a distribution partnership in the DACH region, according to Logan, as it looks to expand its presence across Europe.

Among its different partner types, Logan is particularly interested in VARs capable of providing implementation services around Jitterbit’s platform.

He insists that the vendor will not compete with partners for that work.

“We’ll never compete for implementation dollars,” he says.

“We have a services group, but they’re there to ensure that our partners understand how to implement Jitterbit, how to maximise customer value and not to compete with them.”

Beyond the UK, Logan sees opportunities across Europe but does not identify another individual country as a particular priority.

“The entire region has been a great growth engine for us in the past. I foresee us doubling down here in Europe.”

Licensing overhaul aims to remove pricing uncertainty

Alongside the partner programme changes, Jitterbit is preparing a revamp of its licensing model aimed at addressing concerns about unpredictable software costs.

Logan argues that consumption-based pricing across the integration and AI markets can create uncertainty for customers as usage increases.

He points to transaction volumes, consumption, connections and AI tokens as factors that can make costs difficult to predict.

“CIOs will see their prices escalate in an unpredictable fashion,” he says.

“We plan to pull a lot of that friction out with a brand new way of doing licensing.”

Logan says the revised model will address pricing transparency and consistency.

He believes the changes could also benefit partners by making it easier to provide customers with predictable costs.

AI security drives customer demand

While Jitterbit’s channel strategy is undergoing changes, Logan believes the convergence of AI adoption and cybersecurity is creating significant demand for its technology.

“CIOs are being forced into the AI economy, and they’re terrified by it,” he says.

Logan believes organisations increasingly need to connect enterprise applications with AI models while maintaining control over the data exchanged between them.

Jitterbit’s integration platform connects applications including SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow and NetSuite, alongside models from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini.

The company has also introduced a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which Logan says enables organisations to govern data moving between enterprise applications and AI tools and identifies governance as an important part of Jitterbit’s competitive positioning.

Internally, Jitterbit is using AI to analyse customer accounts, assess partner performance and identify expansion opportunities.

Sovereignty a consideration, but business priorities come first

Despite rising discussions around data sovereignty in Europe, Logan does not believe geopolitical concerns will become the overriding factor in enterprise technology purchasing decisions.

He argues that most European business leaders will continue prioritising commercial requirements while ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place for their data.

The president and CEO acknowledges that some customers have strict requirements around where information is stored and processed.

Jitterbit offers on-premises deployment options for organisations seeking to retain data within their own infrastructure, alongside European cloud datacentres for customers requiring regional hosting.

Logan believes Jitterbit can continue expanding across Europe by combining these deployment options with its integration and AI capabilities.

He also sees the company’s smaller size relative to some competitors as an advantage when implementing changes.

“The amount of change that I’ve already implemented in two months would take them two years to implement,” he says.

“They just can’t move the aircraft carrier, where sometimes size or lack of size can be an advantage.”