Softcat and Computacenter among first in Juniper's invite-only programme

Vendor launches exclusive Enterprise+ programme with 38 EMEA members

Juniper Networks has revealed the first EMEA members to its new invite-only partner programme.

The new programme, named Enterprise+, is designed to grow Juniper's footprint in the enterprise market by investing in its largest partners.

Juniper has welcomed 36 partners across EMEA and 86 globally into the exclusive club and is looking to reach 100 Enterprise+ partners globally.

Computacenter, Softcat, Insight, Bechtle and Infradata are among Juniper's 36 Enterprise+ partners in EMEA. For the full list, scroll down to the bottom of this article.

Speaking to CRN's sister title Channel Partner Insight, Juniper's EMEA head of channels, Sander Groot, said the programme marks an unprecedented move from the networking and security giant to penetrate the enterprise market through its channel partners.

"I have never seen such a big, coordinated and very heavily funded approach to further penetrate the enterprise market," said Groot, who has been with Juniper for almost 20 years.

"We have such a tremendous opportunity to grow in the enterprise place. We need to be honest and we need to be humble in saying that we don't have the lion's share in enterprise sales. But we know we really want it, and we take it more seriously than ever."

Partners were required to hit several key criteria in order to be considered for the programme. Enterprise+ partners are required to log an extra $500,000 in enterprise product sales annually over and above their agreed Juniper business plan signed off in November 2019.

With $500,000 extra coming from each partner, if Juniper hits its target of on boarding a total of 100 Enterprise+ partners, it will log an extra $50m in additional product revenues each year.

Partners are also required to allocate one sales person and one technical person dedicated to Juniper and will need to commit to at least two Juniper specialisations, with its MIST portfolio being made a mandatory requirement to be invited into the programme.

In return, partners will receive support from Juniper's worldwide virtual sales organisation across EMEA, APAC and the US.

Juniper has pledged to allocate dedicated virtual sales reps to all Enterprise+ partners, with the overall partner relationship continuing to be managed by existing Juniper partner account managers.

Partners will also receive two all-access training passes - free of charge - from Juniper so they can certify or re-certify across their chosen specialisations.

Groot said a key benefit for partners in the programme will be new business leads generated through marketing campaigns by Juniper and new MDF funds for partners.

"I have never seen such a big investment in marketing development funds which are now committed to these partners. We will launch all sorts of campaigns in certain waves in order to generate leads. And these leads can be followed up by partner sales reps and by our virtual sales reps, quarterbacked by our partner account managers," he said.

The Enterprise+ programme will run until at least the end of the year.

Groot said there's roughly a 90 per cent overlap between Juniper managed partners and Enterprise+ partners, meaning that around 10 per cent of those in the new programme are brand-new Juniper partners.

The EMEA channel head said he intends to keep the Enterprise+ programme as an exclusive club, and there are no plans to extend its membership beyond its targeted 100 members.

"It is 100 per cent invite-only," he said. "But we do think that, now we're making noise around the programme and we've started advertising it, there will be some partners out there that want to join. We will absolutely welcome that, we've had some conversations with them and we can see where that leads."

The programme is designed to grow Juniper's footprint in the global enterprise space, which has been identified as its number-one growth engine according to Groot.

In 2019, Juniper's Enterprise revenues grew by two per cent year on year to $1.56bn, while its Service Provider segment saw sales drop by 12 per cent to $1.83bn. Lastly, Cloud revenues grew one per cent to $1.06bn.

When asked about the timing of the programme launch during the COVID-19 crisis, Groot said that Juniper signed up the vast majority of its partners before the pandemic hit Europe. He stressed that the programme "has nothing to do" with the crisis, explaining that it was devised in December and January last year - months before the COVID-19 crisis began to spread.

"This was internally kicked off at our sales kick off in Las Vegas in the last week of January and then I had my first meetings on this in the second week of February and that's where we gained interest. Then we ‘closed' on 28 interested companies before COVID-19 hit, so this has nothing to do with COVID-19," he said.

He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has not abated interest in the new programme. He argued that the programme's promise of delivering on lead generation and virtual marketing campaigns have proven more attractive to partners than ever amid the pandemic.

"Italy was so extremely hard hit, and for weeks it was the hardest hit country in Europe at that time. In the third week of misery, I got a telephone call from my area director for South and he said, I have three partners in Italy ready to go. That was the jump up from 28 to 31 at that time. And I thought, this is absolutely heart-warming. They still have the appetite, they can do it and they can use that extra bit of extra fuel. They need the leads, they need the engagement and the inter-activity."

Juniper's Enterprise+ partners - EMEA

DACH

Germany - Axians, SVA, Bechtle, Circular, HCD

Switzerland - Ngworx

North

Beligum - Infradata

Finland - Mintly

Netherlands - Infradata, SLTN

Norway - nLogic Norway

Sweden - nLogic Sweden

UK and Ireland

Computacenter

Insight

Hardware Group

Softcat

Axians

Infradata UK

Telent

Emerging regions

Czech Republc - Comsource

Poland - Infradata Polska

Russia - Inline

Saudi Arabia - BTC

Turkey - BNTPro, Gentel

UAE - ATC

France - NextiraOne, Interdata, Nomios

Israel - Oasis, Spider Solutions

Italy - Lutech, Texor, Vista

Spain - Acuntia SAU, Satec