Veritas to get aggressive as it increases partner rewards

Information management vendor rewards top partners with a seven per cent rise in incentives as it looks to increase its market visibility

Having completed the job of migrating 98 per cent of its top partners to its new, post-Symantec partner programme, Veritas says it is now switching its focus to becoming more visible in the market.

Information management specialist Veritas legally separated from Symantec at the start of 2016, 11 years after the security giant acquired it, and is now owned by investment group The Carlyle Group.

Head of global channel Mark Nutt (pictured) said around 1,000 Platinum, Gold and Silver partners had successfully transitioned to the new Partner Force partner programme, which was launched last October ahead of the split.

"Our priority last year was refocusing from Symantec and getting ourselves focused on Veritas," he told CRN.

"As we go into this year, I'm calling for much greater visibility. I want us to be aggressive as we focus on market opportunities and engaging with our partners."

Nutt said the markets in which Veritas operates - including backup and recovery, storage management and archiving - are growing at a combined seven to eight per cent. The goal now is to grow ahead of that figure, he said.

"We've been open in saying we are going to be delivering 30 new releases and bringing four new products to market, which will bring a huge new opportunity for partners," he added.

Partner Force is "materially a better programme" than the partner programme Symantec introduced 18 months ago thanks to tweaks Veritas has made based on partner feedback, Nutt claimed. This includes changing the growth accelerator rebate to pay from the first dollar.

Veritas recently raised the deal cap on opportunity registration rebates available through Partner Force from $500,000 to $1m and added appliances into the scheme, Nutt said. At the same time, it has removed Backup Exec from opportunity registration but is now paying partners a higher upfront discount for selling its volume mid-market backup offering.

The incentives on offer for distributors - which were rationalised last autumn - and for metal partners have risen by 12 and seven per cent respectively under the new regime, Nutt claimed.

"We have made it more rewarding, simple and predictable, and more focused for both the enterprise and mid-market by delivering the rewards partners told us were important," he said.

Partner principles

Veritas generates more than 86 per cent of global sales through its channel, which comprises 625 directly managed partners and a further 22,000 partners managed through distribution, Nutt said.

The percentage stands in the "late 80s" in EMEA and Nutt said Veritas had recently rolled out a set of partner principles to help minimise conflict with direct sales.

"We shouldn't be quoting direct to a customer; that is the role of a partner and by having these simple principles and getting the leadership team to lead on them, that limits conflict," he said.

Nutt said partners are enjoying "huge growth" around appliances, an area Veritas added to this week with the launch of its NetBack 5200-series integrated appliance. He claimed Backup Exec, which boasts 2.2 million customers globally and is sold by 20,000 partners, is also enjoying a "revival".

Smaller backup competitors will have counted on Veritas losing focus as it decoupled from Symantec but Nutt claimed this has not been the case.

"To win in this market, you need to be focused. Since we split with Symantec, we are extremely focused," Nutt said. "We've changed our engineering approach and have connected our products more effectively than we have done in the past.

"That's what customers want: a backup solution that links with storage management, archiving and mapping capabilities. The start-ups may have a great [backup] product, but over time customers realise they need a broader solution and that is what we are bringing to market."