The new Citrix program is much simpler than the old, and its five separate programs, and provides new automated registration of benefits. It also adds a new back-end rebate.
Paul Fecteau, Citrix’s Managing Director – Partner Programs & Operations
Today, at the Citrix Summit partner event in Anaheim, Citrix is announcing a complete redesign of their partner programs, which will kick in a month from now. The five separate programs that existed previously are being consolidated into one in a much more automated process. While benefits under the old programs don’t simply disappear with the restructuring, there is a realignment – to encourage further transition to the cloud and its subscription-based delivery model.
This news won’t come as a big surprise to Citrix partners. A year ago at this same event, global channel chief Craig Stilwell indicated harmonizing the numerous programs would be a top priority for 2018 – with its being delayed that long only because he had just assumed the channel chief role. Paul Fecteau, Citrix’s Managing Director – Partner Programs & Operations, took charge of the redesign.
“There were two key objectives with the changes,” Fecteau said. “One was to simplify doing business with Citrix, something that Craig talked about last year. We had five programs, each with their own terms and conditions, and it could be hard for partners to keep things straight in their own minds. In addition to unifying five programs into one, we also created a new registration process that speeds up time to approval.”
The second objective was to accelerate partners’ profit in the cloud.
“We want to continue to reward for on-prem sales, but we are putting more emphasis on cloud sales,” Fecteau said. “We recognize that the world is hybrid, that we will always sell on-prem, and will continue to reward partners for that. There won’t ever be a time where it’s all cloud. However, there will be increased emphasis on cloud, and as a general statement, it’s fair to say they will make more by selling cloud.”
Under the new structure, the five legacy programs – Net New Partner Sourced, Opportunity Registration, Citrix Advisor Rewards (CAR), CAR Specialist Plus, and CAR Specialist Bonus – are being replaced by the unified Citrix Ultimate Rewards program.
“Citrix Ultimate Rewards provides a systemic way of giving the feel of one program,” Fecteau said. “When partners register a deal, they don’t have to know specific program requirements. They just put in the customer information and the system will automatically understand what incentives they qualify for.”
Citrix Ultimate Rewards has two distinct front-ended discount elements – Spark and Drive – and a back-ended rebate – Accelerate.
“Spark incents for the same behavior as Net New Partner Sourced – new opportunities,” Fecteau said. “Drive provides the same kind of benefits as CAR, for value-added selling activities. CAR provides a rebate whether the partner closes the deal or not, and partners have said that’s the most important of the five programs. We will still honour that. We will still pay the Drive incentive even if they don’t close the deal, and add it into their quarterly rebate.”
CAR Plus and CAR Bonus were accelerators on top of the regular CAR payout, which provided a multiplier to their rebate.
“We don’t have equivalents of CAR Plus and CAR Business in the new program, because we have simplified it by paying out money within the program itself,” Fecteau said.
The new Accelerate quarterly rebate program is a net-new for Citrix. It is limited to Citrix Platinum partners and Gold partners with a core specialization.
“This is entirely new, as we didn’t have a rebate program before,” Fecteau said. “It is aggregated for all things we wish to provide rebates on. We will be rewarding for two elements with Accelerate in 2018. One is selling Citrix cloud services. There is no target they have to meet. It’s a dollar for dollar reward. The second is straight product sales growth. This will allow ‘old school’ partners who aren’t that interested in the cloud, or who are moving to it just as fast as they need to, and not faster, to get enhanced benefits as well – if they can grow that business enough.”
February 9, 2018 will be the last day to register deals in the current incentive programs. The new program kicks in on February 10, 2018, and deals from that point will be registered in Citrix Ultimate Rewards. March 23, 2018 is the expiration date for all registrations approved under current incentive rules.
