Fortinet offers partners cash for leads

Security vendor wants resellers to act as lead generation machine for its wares

Fortinet is offering big rewards to partners who bring it leads in what it claims is one of the industry's most generous incentive campaigns to date.

The network security vendor is dishing out three and four-figure rewards to partners that drum up business on its behalf via its FortiReward programme.

One UK partner racked up $8,000 through the credit card scheme for bringing in a single $120,000 deal for Fortinet's Fortigate firewall and advanced technology. Points are racked up for booking meetings, arranging proof-of-concepts and closing deals on the vendor's behalf.

Mark Hyland, UK country manager at Fortinet, claimed the scheme is one of the industry's most generous.

"With the amount of money we're paying out, partners are telling us this is the best incentive programme they've ever seen," he said. "We are seeing some significant opportunities brought to us specifically because of this programme."

Chris Walsh, channel partner manager at Fortinet, added: "Vendors can spend a lot on lead generation campaigns but none of them ever seem to work. Who better to get you into the end user than the reseller?"

Hyland admitted that Fortinet lost its way a couple of years ago as a string of top UK staff left one after another, leaving its local headcount at as low as five at one stage.

The UTM specialist now has 27 UK staff, including four channel heads, and UK revenues swelled about 80 per cent last year, Hyland said. This year, top-line expansion has been more in line with the vendor's overall growth. In Q2 total revenues rose 14 per cent to $147m.

Staff stability has been an important ingredient in its recovery, Hyland said.

"Partners are disillusioned with most security vendors," he said. "Fortinet was probably the worst offender two or three years ago but we've been consistent, honest and straight and now we're actually getting calls from resellers who want to work with us."

Rewards from the incentive programme - which was launched in Q2 - can be allocated either to the reseller as a whole or to an individual sales rep. Depending on the quarter, Fortinet may pay out more on new technologies, such as its Wi-Fi offering or the load balancing technology it recently acquired from Coyote Point. Points for meetings and proof of concepts will be paid out even if the deal does not then go on to close, said Walsh (pictured).

"Fortinet is extremely strong when it gets to the proof-of-concept stage. Our conversion rate is very high," he said.