Application delivery solutions vendor Radware has rethought and reworked its channel program. The new Smart Choice Partner Program is intended to give more focus and support to its best partners, to get more of them focused on selling solutions rather than boxes, and to do this through a better organized and centralized single program.
"In the past, we had several regional channel programs," said James Colby, VP of Marketing and Channels at Radware. "Each had good points and less-good points. So we combined the best points and rolled them into one single program. Doing things regionally was less efficient, with too much time spent on administration. Globalizing it makes it more efficient and more streamlined."
Colby said that there is improved communication from doing things centrally. Their partner portal is much more polished and effective than it was, allowing partners to get the information, training and tools that they need.
However, Colby indicated that the changes are also philosophical, and aren't simply rooted in administrative efficiency.
"This is the culmination of a year long activity of strategic focus on the channel," he said. "We had always been a company that worked with channels, but we set out to demonstrate we were channel friendly and this is the culmination of that exercise."
Colby acknowledged that there had been problems with the way the program worked in the past, which he said stemmed from the fact that as Radware and its revenues grew, its partnering philosophy had remained stuck in the days when it was smaller.
"It has been starts and stops in channel for us," Colby said. "We had a lot of partners -- really more partners than we bargained for, and weren't focused on the right relationships and making those relationships work. So some didn't turn out as well as we expected. "
A focused go-to-market methodology wasn't in place, Colby said.
"We weren't clear enough with where we wanted to focus, and we also had a focus where quantity is better than quality, and that was a mistake on our part," he said. "Application delivery and network security are not easy to deploy. We realized that the skills we had with pre and post sales engineering support is a finite commodity, and if we spread them too thin we don't have the bandwidth."
The restructured program deals with these issues by putting the emphasis and resources in the top two tiers of a three tier program, and by encouraging partners to focus on solution selling. The program tiers have been renamed from Gold-Silver-Bronze to Premier Partner-Select Partner-Affiliate Partner, and Colby said the changes aren't cosmetic.
"It's rebranding, but it's also signifying focus on competencies and disciplines," he said. "We are more disciplined in who we are trying to court, and there is greater focus on training and investment in the top two tiers. That's where the marketing dollars go." The Select Partners specialize in solution selling of at least one Radware defined competency, and the Premier Partners are key-in region partners that demonstrate the highest industry competencies for solution implementation.
"We now focus on the top two tiers to make sure they are solution designers rather than box sellers, so they build a solution around our products and technologies. We were doing too much of this work ourself, and our business growth was somewhat stifled."
While revenue is one component of the tiers, the number of certified and trained engineering resources is another.
"The people we train have to understand how the product works, but also need to know how it fits within the consolidation of data centers, or embracing the cloud," Colby said. "It's the application of those technologies. They have to be able to talk the language of the customer, not only understand the bits and bytes of the product."
At the same time, Colby said that the partners in the entry-level Affiliate tier aren't being given a shape-up or ship-out ultimatum to upgrade their skills.
"Some partners don't have aspirations to become Systems Integrators, and they sell things like our ROBO products that are easy to do. If they have a model that works, if they don't want to overstretch themselves, that's okay. But we do want to grow the guys who want to grow."
Greater partner productivity is required to deal with new opportunities and demand in the industry. Over the past two years, Radware's business and market share has grown dramatically since its acquisition of Alteon and the launch of key solutions including its OnDemand Switch platform used as the basis for all Radware products, its improvements to the Alteon product line, and the recent launch of its new Virtual Application Delivery Infrastructure (VADI) strategy. The application delivery and network security markets are very healthy and provide an even larger growth potential.
Additional program benefits, enhancements and designations are planned to be rolled out over the next year.