The new program significantly improves partner enablement, while looking to double down with key go-to-market partners and encourage joint solutions with SnapLogic Technology Partners. SnapLogic also wants to recruit some more partners in Canada.

Data application and integration provider SnapLogic has restructured its SnapLogic Partner Connect Program to ramp up partner enterprise integration and digital transformation abilities.

“We focus on integration – both application integration and integration of data sources – both of which are critical in digital initiatives,” said Rich Link, VP of Global Channel Sales and Strategic Alliances, SnapLogic

. “What we do is provide a unique take on data application and integration with a ‘click not code’ approach. We have developed 450 ‘snaps’ – connectors – to databases and applications. These take the mystery out of connecting to published APIs, with a ‘drag and drop’ and ‘click not code’ approach. It very much facilitates citizen integrators, and democratizes the process of data and application integration.”

SnapLogic was founded in 2006, with one of their co-founders also having been a co-founder of Informatica.

“He saw an opportunity to really embrace a new model, since the old one dated from the late 1990s and was running out of gas,” Link said. “We now have about 200 plus employees globally, and four offices across the world. We have been an iPaaS [Integration Platform-as-a-Service] leader in the Gartner iPaaS magic quadrant for the last three years.”

Their sweet spot is the Global 2000, with high profile lighthouse companies like Workday, Box, and HPE. They extend down into the midmarket as well.

SnapLogic started out selling direct, as most companies in its space do at inception, and gradually began adding partners, who the company forecasts will bring in 40 per cent of company revenue by the end of 2018.

“We have had channel partners going back to 2010-2011, and we launched a formal partner program two years ago,” Link said. “The foundation for this change in the program now is that over the last couple years, we have seen the growth of partners involved in deals and bringing in leads in deals, as well as increases in the numbers of partners trained. We thought we could do even better in leveraging the partner ecosystem with an enhanced structure that creates more value if we made changes to the program to bring this about. Customers are looking to their technology partners to act as extensions of their own digital teams – not do one off digital integrations. This is the new model for digital transformation that we are looking to facilitate.”

Link said that the overall goal of the new program is to double down on three core areas around go-to-market, enablement and joint solutions.

Developing a stronger set of key go-to-market partners is a major goal.

“There are two major tiers – Registered and Premier – as well as one for distribution partners,” Link said. “The general benefits in the Registered Tier increase for the Premier tier. These include biannual road map reviews and quarterly business reviews, a channel account manager and an executive sponsor. We want to work with the Premier Partners much more closely.”

The Premier Partners will be rewarded for their commitment and investment with a combination of incents.

“We provide them with a set of reference architectures, to get the key go-to-market much more tightly aligned with the product management teams,” Link indicated. “Our trusted Go-to-Market partners need to see these before they hit the market. We want to bring them upstream in the process, and give them additional incents to provide it as a solution.”

Entrance to the Premier Tier is determined by the degree of training and certification, and also the amount of business the partner does, as well as the past history with the partner.

“With premier partners, we need more certified trained consultants, and we are giving them an incentive to strive for that,” Link said.

That desire to double down on key partners is an extension of SnapLogic’s selective approach to partnering.

“The types of initiatives we are in involve a select number of services partners,” Link said. “We don’t want hundreds of partners bumping into one another in the same deal

Partner enablement activities are more formalized and focused than previously.

“Discounts and referral rates were not formalized across the tiers before,” Link said. “We now provide a standard resale discount, and the partner gets additional discount if they bring in the lead. We also made changes to align the partner more with what we are doing to promote the product. We rolled out a Free Trial program earlier this year. If the partner gets the customer to take a Free Trial, they get an additional incent. They also get additional incents for exceeding revenue goals, which are much more formal now than in the old program.”

A new partner portal, which is in the final throes of development, is being rolled out, which will provide self-service functionality for things which had required human interaction before.

“It’s an important element of trying to streamline the interactions we have with partners,” Link said. “Without the portal, if they wanted collateral on a specific suite of snaps they had to go to their rep before. We will now provide all that through the portal. The portal will also allow more in the way of self service. Before, partners had to go to our services team to get access to training.”

Training has also been enhanced significantly.

“We have repurposed our internal sales training and added additional advanced training topics, providing more benefits and more incentives,” Link indicated.

The new program has also added benefits and incentives for deals which involve joint solutions with SnapLogic’s Technology Partners.

“Each of these deals are inherently multi vendor, and that’s reflected more prominently in the program now,” Link said. “We work closely with our common technology partners, and we want our partners to build prepackaged solutions with these partners. We have 450 Snaps now, but there are 150 Technology Partners I’m looking to get deeper with, and want to get that number down even further to partners whose solutions were are seeing repeated more and more. There are about 25 of these. For example, in Human Capital Management, it’s Workday. Snowflake is Cloud Data Warehousing.”

Link also signalled SnapLogic’s intent to beef up their Canadian channel.

“We are looking to do more in Canada, and sign up more partners there,” he said. “We have a handful of decent brand names and a small number of partners in Canada, and we are looking to increase that. It’s an ideal time for partners to be teaming up with SnapLogic.”