'We went from zero to 100': What does Juniper's new 'Elite Plus' tier mean for its channel?

CRN spoke to the vendor and its partners at its 2023 UKI Summit in London yesterday

Juniper Networks is incentivising partners to fast track to its new Elite Plus level, in a bid to further grow its enterprise business.

That was the top line from the vendor's UKI Partner Summit in Canary Wharf, London, yesterday.

CRN spoke to UK&I channel director Dale Smith to get the rationale behind the partner programme shift.

"We are quite a narrow service provider-oriented channel, very profitable, very healthy channel, but obviously wasn't very enterprise centric," he said.

"So, our mission statement then became to transform the channel from a service provider-centric to an enterprise channel and go to market model."

Smith explained that it took significant investment in partner recruitment to help drive their enterprise pivot.

Juniper Networks enterprise business today is now its largest revenue generating unit in the company.

"And that is phenomenal work," Dale told partners.

"That gives us the foundation at board level to write some very big checks internally and say, ‘Hey, we want to invest even more to accelerate, we want our partners to be more profitable.'

"We want them to be more incentivised, and we want them to be more focused on the opportunity ahead for the next three years, as we look to double our business," Smith added.

He also explained how the 2022 results showed that enterprise is outstripping the smaller SMB service provider market for Juniper. In the UK market the enterprise segment grew by 25 per cent year on year.

And globally, partners delivered 60 per cent growth for Juniper.

"So we recognise that [partners] are key to driving up growth going forward. So we want to continue these investments, we really want to make sure that we're giving you a more profitable go to market as we move forward," Smith continued.

Taking the fast track

The ‘Elite Plus' tier of the JPA programme is now Juniper's top-tier.

"This was a significant game changer for us at Juniper, and for many of our partners. This is where it'll save the most amount of marketing dollars and where that co-investment programmes and profitability is held.

"We've invested more in community tools, increasing rebates, and simplifying, because we are sometimes a little challenging on certifications to make sure that [partners] have the best tools available to go forward," Smith explained.

For 2023, Smith said Juniper plans to keep the investments going, by increasing distribution resources, more marketing personnel and "more feet on the street."

"We need more salespeople; we need to ensure that we're really reinforcing the amount of account managers out there that are really helping you with the prospects and customers that we have.

"And we're increasing those as part of what we call a Juniper Enterprise Acceleration Programme, which essentially means investing in people."

The view from the partners

"It's about us growing our business. And certainly, where we are at the moment, if you look at the number of customers we've got, what it's actually bringing us is a different set of customers, to the ones that I was talking to previously," said Matt Walker, general manager for networking at SCC when asked about the SCC's decision to become an Elite Plus partner in the JPA programme.

Gemma Head, managing director of engineering services at Roc Technologies explained their experience in the JPA programme saying, "We've gone from zero to 100, we have literally gone in at an elite class.

"What has changed, I think over the last year is that what was initially maybe a tactical engagement [with Juniper] has become much more strategic now. And that alignment with Juniper in the markets we work in, in the sectors we operate in, it's always strategic intent now."

Head also spoke about some of the improvement areas, "Well, look, one of the things that naturally happens is customer buying changes.

"So the way customers sometimes want to structure deals are perhaps not necessarily the way people have been put putting together deals. And that's from when no distributor, and the actual service organisation. So when a customer comes back and wants to buy in a different way, between the three of us, we really need to get back together and see what we can do to accommodate as much as we can, towards the way the customer wants to buy with things like network as a service is really easy, because it's nicely packaged.

"But when a customer wants to buy something slightly different, or consume it in a different way, or get things at different times and only pay for what they use, you know, all sorts of shades, if you like of the way customers may want to consume the product or service.

"This is where really the difference comes out in is this a partner or distributor that works with you? Or are you on your own? And I think what we've seen is that there is a great level of will to make it work.

And then Tanaz Gould, chief revenue officer, also from Roc Technologies added, "I think that willingness to work with us [from Juniper] is so evident. And it is that learning, you know, we we will learn on all three parties, I think from the distribution partner and from Juniper. Every time this comes around, these challenges will slowly get lesser."

She talked about the the choice of investing in the elite plus programme, "You choose market leading technology, that customers where there is demand in the market for and then you build capability around it, so that you can deliver it as a value back.

Gould praised Juniper's Mist platform that fits in "perfectly" with their digital solution practice that does data engineering, local application development and the broad network capability that Roc Technologies has been producing for a long time.

"So bringing that together, it is sort of a bit of a no brainer, if you think about it, to them accelerate the journey."

Distributor partner, Nuvias, was also at the event and Daniel Dickson, who's their European vendor director told us about what they are asking from their partnership with Juniper.

"If we're talking from a channel perspective I'd say what we're probably asking for is making sure that where we are investing as Juniper are investing as well. That we're seeing investments from Juniper into marketing, into resources.

"And that gives us confidence as a distributor that Juniper have a team in place to be able to meet those growth ambitions. And it gives us the reassurance as a distributor to invest."