The new ProsperIT program also better enables Netenrich to recruit and support partners who want to resell them, rather than embed them, a trend which has been growing recently.
Justin Crotty, Netenrich’s Senior Vice President of Channels
While Netenrich spent the better part of two decades as an IT service management company, transitions in the market have led them to label themselves a Resolution Intelligence company, to emphasize the growing security management part of their business around the Resolution Intelligence platform. Now they have revamped their ProsperIT partner program to emphasize the changes to their business. They have also made changes to deepen relationships with partner sales reps, something that has not been a major priority in the past.
“The changes reflect the shifting posture of the company,” said Justin Crotty, Netenrich’s Senior Vice President of Channels. “They reflect our evolving position in the market from the hybrid IT infrastructure services that we have done forever. We still do that, but we are shifting to a security-first focus with Resolution Intelligence. We are transforming from a from device-based focus, where something breaks and we fix it, to Resolution Intelligence.”
Crotty said that changes were necessary to ensure that Netenrich can maintain and grow high-value channel relationships.
“We are not the typical channel vendor,” he stated. “We are high value-add to our partners, and strategically critical to them. Partner growth is critically important to us. That’s how we grow, so we need to help them grow. We aren’t trying to get 5000 partners. I have less than 100 significant partner relationships. But we do want to attract partners of different flavours, and help them transform to a Resolution Intelligence-oriented model going forward. The program takes Resolution Intelligence to market with partners in a more formal and consistent way.”
The program is also now designed to strengthen relationships with partners at the sales rep level.
“Our program up till now was more at an executive to executive level,” Crotty said. “The new program is an attempt to really engage closer at the sales rep level, to make them more confident and capable, and help the rep accelerate time to revenue for customers. This was more haphazard in the past. We can best help partners grow by getting deeper engagement with the field-based sales rep, so we can be better together than they can be on their own. We went down this path to make reps more capable.”
This stepping up ability to engage with sales reps has become more important because more partners are selling Netenrich through a different sales motion.
“We are now seeing more of a resell motion, where they resell rather than embed us into their service delivery,” Crotty said. “It behooves us to help reps leverage us for that. We continue to drive our integrated model but as we are seeing more of a resell model, we want to be driving that as well. It lets us accommodate the partner’s choice of how to provide value.”
The new program is also designed to facilitate direct relations with partners, rather than leaving the relationship more to distribution.
“The old program supported the Go-to-Market of cloud and service model through distribution,” Crotty said. “With this one, the Netenrich brand is more prevalent. We aren’t just behind a distributor. This is direct to partner, helping the partner deliver value.”
While Netenrich has made significant net-new investments in the new program, Crotty indicated that it is more about providing the essentials to partners.
“There are only so many ways to scramble an egg,” he said. “We didn’t have a formal deal registration program before though, and we do now. That’s kind of a table stake. We also now have a formal digital engagement methodology.”
Crotty termed the sales program the Peloton Sales program.
“The name infers that we are stronger together than as individuals,” he said. “It’s our formal training and sales engagement program that provides them with training and selling capabilities.”
Crotty also noted that Netenrich has ramped up its marketing efforts to support partners.
“We hired a completely new marketing team in April of last year,” he said. “It’s about driving engagement with the market and helping partners find new routes to market.”
Finally, while the goal isn’t to enlist swarms of new partners through the program, Crotty emphasized that they are looking for specific high-value ones.
“I do want to attract new partners, particularly those that may have looked at us in the past and decided they weren’t interested,” he said. “I want more national and regional MSPs that can drive margins and growth, and also attract resell partners who want to lead with our security operations capabilities, and who want to resell us, not embed us. With this new program, I can support those types of engagements now.”
