Snow, which has been in the visibility and software asset management market going back into the last century, was content with their existing partner program, but thought a next-gen one would better equip partners for dealing with the challenges of today’s IT environments.

Snow Software, which manages Technology Intelligence, including providing visibility and insights, as well as software asset management, SaaS management and cloud management solutions, has announced a remaking of their Partner Program. The new one is designed to enable the partner ecosystem to capitalize on new market opportunities as modern IT becomes more complex. It also gives partners the ability to address these more complex issues with updated training and certifications, more targeted rewards and  the creation of a more visible partner face for customers and prospects.

Snow is a long-established player in their segment, which first began to sell in 1997.

“We’ve stuck to the core of what we started out with – driving intelligence in customer environments,” said Vinod Chumber, Snow Software’s channel leader. “This is where Snow sits front and centre, with our platform, which started with one product and which we have expanded deeper and wider, and now have 3000 customers. What we capture and normalize is far greater than any other organization.”

Chumber said that like all companies of its vintage in its space, Snow started out as a software player, but shifted into the cloud with the market.

“As we moved into the cloud world, Snow Atlas, our next generation platform, became our core,” he stated. “It’s the future for our customers.”

Those customers include a range of organizations which cover most parts of the market.

“We sell to all sectors and all markets. Chumber indicated. “If they have a technology estate, they have needs, whether they are a company like Jaguar, a financial, or even startups who want to be smart.”

Snow’s channel strategy has been historically unusual in its space, where most companies started direct, and some still are.

“I’ve been here over 12 months now, and I emphasized that question when I joined, since I’ve always been at companies where they channel has been important, Chumber stated. “I found that we have been channel first from the outset, and that 70% of our revenues goes through the partners.”

Chumber said that Snow has about 500 partners globally, of various forms and sizes, and including all different types of partners.

“The program doesn’t categorize partners on any type of format,” he noted. “It’s a more modern modular partner framework where they decide how much they want to invest in Snow.”

Chumber said that the old program was effective, which begs the question why they wanted to change it. He stressed that there were three reasons.

“The first is that we wanted to drive further engagement,” he said. “We were happy with the program before, but we wanted to take it to another level.”

The second objective reflected Snow CRO David Pieterse’s desire to make their channel even more visible.

“We wanted to change the program in a way that would make it more visible, and tell the world that we are partner centric,” Chumber indicated.

Third was an improvement in training and certifications.

“We wanted partners to be skilled and enabled,” he said.

“We are being respectful to partners and we want them to also be responsible for end user value,” Chumber noted. “We look to value in three ways. One is our commercial pricing model with our partner ecosystem. We have been very transparent on those. Secondly, we have been rolling out certification tracks, so that customers understand the value of our Tier One product. We want to make sure that our partners have that deep seat with customers, and an important way to do this is to showcase partners who deliver great and successful programs.”

The new program invests more in empowering their partners by offering access to new discount structures, training, certifications, and sales shadowing opportunities.

“The shadowing program is for new partners,” Chumber said. “We work with them on their first opportunities.”

He also indicated that SnowHow, the company’s partner portal, has a new look and extensive new backend capabilities.

“It’s a new system, and reflects that we made a huge investment,” Chumber stated. “It lets us be more transparent, with a point-based system to allow partners to have a more engaged relationship with us, and improve their partner experience.” SnowHow is one centralized place for everything related to Snow, including deal registration, Snow Globe, Snow Academy and Support.

Snow is also introducing new Partner Scorecards, which provide each partner with real-time information on where they stand in the program.

“Partner organizations are made up of a lot of individuals, and we are inviting them to interlock with our PRM system,” Chumber said.

The rewards system has also been tweaked to recognize individuals within partner organizations, rather than just providing incents for bringing in new customers.

“We are now also rewarding for advancing a positive customer experience, and building market awareness,” Chumber stated. “Happy customers are happy to talk about their experiences.”

Completion of certifications also now rewards individuals. The eLearning portal – Snow Academy – is now free for all partners. Snow is also launching a series of new Sales and Pre-Sales content to ensure partners feel confident in delivering solutions to their mutual customers. This will all be continually enhanced going forward.