Veritas Brings New Funding, Flexibility To Partner Force Program

‘We want to drive the profitability of strategic channel partners who will drive and sell more new business with us,’ Scott Genereux, executive vice president of worldwide field operations, tells CRN.

Veritas is revamping its channel program with the addition of new incentives and funding aimed at helping channel partners who are committed to the company grow their business.

Veritas is investing in its Veritas Partner Force program as a way to increase performance-based benefits while accelerating the growth of its solution providers, said Scott Genereux, executive vice president of worldwide field operations for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based data management and data protection software vendor.

"We want to drive the profitability of strategic channel partners who will drive and sell more new business with us," Genereux told CRN.

[Related: Veritas Acquires Aptare In Bet On Analytics, Management For Hybrid Cloud]

New to the Veritas Partner Force program is a move to simplify opportunity registration, Genereux said. The company is also offering bonuses of up to 12 percent to partners who close new incremental sales, both with existing and with new customers, he said.

In addition, Veritas wants its partners to invest in the cloud to be where the IT industry as a whole is moving, Genereux said.

"Cloud is a big part of the industry," he said. "A lot of partners have good installed bases, but they need to transfer their focus to SaaS."

To help with the transition, Veritas is adding dollars to its market development funds and is earmarking a part of its MDFs toward assisting Platinum-level and Gold-level partners with developing proposals focused on the cloud, Genereux said.

The company is also investing in a new strategic growth fund to help partners target new customers, new business opportunities, and new technologies like the heterogeneous analytics and data management technology it got with its March acquisition of Aptare, he said.

"We used to be very rigid: 'You do this, and you'll get X,'" he said. "We still have that. But we need to work with partners in a flexible way on how to invest. This is more of a collaborational play than anything else."

Veritas also wants to focus more on those partners that have demonstrated their commitment to the company and put less emphasis on those who had more of a Symantec focus when Veritas was a part of that security vendor, Genereux said.

Veritas is not looking to actively cut partners, according to Genereux. "The question is, who will we invest in and who will we let take renewals,” he said.

"We're reviewing our rules to help partners take better advantage of renewals," Genereux said. "We're looking at how to focus on Gold and Platinum partners."

Veritas is showing its commitment to its channel partners with its new field programs and its doubling down on partners with unique capabilities, said Suzanne Gallagher, vice president of cloud and data center transformation at Insight, a Tempe, Ariz.-based solution provider and longtime Veritas partner.

"I really appreciate that they are now seriously evaluating the strengths of their channel partners," Gallagher told CRN.

The changes to the Veritas Partner Force program are not necessarily earth-shattering, but it is important that Veritas is showing the flexibility and agility to invest in the right places, Gallagher said.

"Where are those places?" she said. "In partners who invest in innovation and scalability. The agility Veritas is showing, I'm really supportive of it."