Alfresco promises richer rewards with new partner scheme

Open source content management vendor introduces deal registration as part of new reseller programme

Alfresco partners will enjoy richer rewards following the introduction of a new partner programme, according to the open source vendor's vice president of global channel programmes and sales, Bob Crissman.

Historically, the open source provider of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) solutions did not offer deal registration to its partners, instead providing a closing discount.

Crissman explained the addition of the deal registration: "I feel like they've invested enough in our business and we want to invest in them."

Alfresco's open source technology is designed to help global organisations to collaborate across cloud, hybrid and on-premise environments. The software manages over seven billion documents, with more than 11 million users worldwide.

With the installation of the new programme, Alfresco aims to have indirect sales at 70 per cent of the business by the end of the year, up 10 percentage points from the last financial year.

"We want to keep driving that number up," said Crissman. "We are all in with our partners; we can't sell the platform without our partners building solutions on top of it."

As well as deal registration, the new programme includes a partner portal, which Crissman explained is a "one-stop shop for partners to go and get all the information they need about Alfresco".

There is also a partner solutions framework which aims to share results and customer feedback from use cases.

"The channel is critical in our route to market; we are investing several hundred thousand dollars in the programme," added Crissman. "We view the channel as being critical to our success. We would not exist without the channel, so we want to do everything we can to help the channel succeed."