Citrix targets mid-market 'white space' with new partner incentives

Vendor says partners can earn up to 10 per cent more if they utilise new incentives it is introducing in mid-market push

New incentives Citrix is introducing to help its resellers drive into the "white space" of the mid-market could boost their margins by 10 per cent, the vendor has claimed.

The application delivery and virtualisation specialist today announced a raft of changes to how it rewards and incentivises its partners.

This includes the introduction of a brand new programme that pays resellers an extra seven per cent upfront discount for generating net new opportunities.

The programme, dubbed Net New Partner Sourced, pays out not only for opportunities uncovered in net new customers but also for new opportunities covered in existing customers. It will launch on 9 May.

Citrix - which has seven top-level Platinum partners in the UK in the form of Alternative Networks, Cetus, Esteem, Computacenter, Kelway, SCC and Ultima - said it is also "clarifying existing incentives to focus rewards on objective activities".

Taken together, the changes - brought in by recently appointed global channel boss Kimberly Martin - mean partners can earn up to an extra 10 per cent margin, Mark Beaumont (pictured), head of channel northern European at Citrix, told CRN.

The updates are particularly focused on driving mid-market business, he explained.

"Mid-market was called out at our partner summit [in Las Vegas in January] as a huge opportunity for Citrix and our partners," he said. "That's where the largest white-space opportunity is and that's where most of the partners have their strongest relationships."

Beaumont added: "The Net New Partner Sourced programme is really designed to drive more mid-market business. While we don't transact directly with large enterprise customers, they are pretty well covered by us from a relationship and account management perspective. But the mid-market is so large that we don't have that coverage so we are much more reliant on channel coverage in that space."

In the UK, this means firms with 500 to 5,000 staff.

On top of the discount changes, Citrix is replacing its existing marketing fund programmes with a new "Strategic Development Fund", effective in July in EMEA and the Americas.

"That's an evolution," Beaumont explained. "Globally we have had different flavours of co-op and MDF. This is a more consistent global programme to provide funds for partners to do demand generation."

Last year, Citrix came under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which blasted the vendor for having "too many channel partners".

But Beaumont said the introduction of the new incentives, which will be available to all UK Citrix partners including its seven Platinum and 25 Gold resellers, were not driven by shareholders.

"Kimberly joined us last year so this is just about someone new coming in and seeing an opportunity to improve what is already a market-leading channel programme," he said. "This is not being driven up by activist investors or to reduce the number of channel partners. We have a healthy channel and are actively recruiting new partners."