Symantec Empowers Partners with Enhanced Programme

Symantec Empowers Partners with Debut of Enhanced Partner Programme

Specialisation model rewards partner expertise in solution areas and growth markets

Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced the evolution of the Symantec Partner Program, designed to help partners build competitive advantage, improve recognition and increase profitability. The enhanced Symantec Partner Program is based on a specialist model, rewarding the knowledge and expertise a partner has in a solution area or market. With its enhanced Partner Program, Symantec also introduced a Master Specialisation category and rolled out a further three new Specialisations, designed to empower partners to deliver greater value to customers.

The enhanced Symantec Partner Program recognises partners’ investment in Symantec, as well as Symantec’s commitment to its partners. Specialised partners will be rewarded with increased rebates, access to enablement resources and recognition by Symantec and customers. Specialisations will be a requirement for attaining Silver, Gold and Platinum partner level status in the Symantec Partner Program. Some partners may already possess accreditations toward Specialisations. In Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), partners will have until April 2011 to transition to the new programme requirements, which will include achieving the number of specialisations needed to maintain their partner level.

“Businesses today are looking for partners that can provide higher competencies and value-added services to address the challenges and complexities of their business environment,” said David Dzienciol, Symantec’s vice president for SMB and Channel, Asia Pacific and Japan. “Symantec’s Partner Program enhancements acknowledge these shifts in the market by offering our partners opportunities to specialise in key growth areas to differentiate their business, maximise returns on investment and accelerate profitability.”

New Master Specialisations Recognise Services Investment
Symantec is launching Master Specialisations, a new category in the Symantec Partner Program recognising and promoting partners with advanced consulting, technical and service capabilities in a specialised solution area. This new specialisation category is part of Symantec’s partner-led consulting services model, which offers partners increased scalability to meet customer requirements, reduces channel conflict and provides an opportunity for greater licence sales potential.

Master Specialisations are now available in five solution areas: Enterprise Security, Data Loss Prevention, IT Compliance, Data Protection and Archiving and eDiscovery. Full details and regional availability of Master Specialisations are available on Symantec PartnerNet.

New Specialisations Align to Partner Business Models
Symantec Specialisations recognise and reward partners with advanced knowledge and expertise in a solution area or market segment. Symantec is introducing three new specialisations —Data Protection, High Availability and Storage Management—and now offers a total of nine specialisations to its partners in APJ.

• Data Protection Specialisation recognises partners who have proven their ability to deliver effective solutions to help protect their customers’ business information and systems, and capture business opportunities from the transformation of a large, established market.
• High Availability Specialisation recognises partners who have demonstrated their ability to help protect their customers’ applications and data against unplanned downtime, and take advantage of business opportunities created by server virtualisation.

• Storage Management Specialisation recognises partners who have proven their ability to help their customers manage data growth and improve storage utilisation, and take advantage of business opportunities created by explosive data growth.

As partners achieve specialisations and deepen their expertise in Symantec solutions, Symantec will continue to provide partners with additional resources to help partners differentiate themselves, deliver greater value to customers and take advantage of new market opportunities:
• Symplus is Symantec’s new partner incentive promotion for members of the Symantec Partner Program. The programme recognises partners through cash rewards for their efforts in selling Symantec products, promoting solutions, obtaining technical accreditations and registering and closing opportunities. The rewards will be redeemed through a Symplus Visa Prepaid Debit Card. For more information, please visit: www.symplus-apj.com.
• Symantec IQ for Partners provides partners with access to product and solution content created by Symantec experts. Partners can search Symantec’s online repository for documents, presentations and tools to secure sales and better support customers. Symantec IQ also includes forums for partners and Symantec experts to communicate on topics centered on being a Specialised partner. Visit Symantec Partner University for additional information.

Click to Tweet: Symantec launches enhanced Partner Program - Specialisation model rewards partner expertise.

Supporting Quotes
• “Increasingly, we are seeing that channel partners are finding their margins being squeezed. Creative incentive schemes that provide channel partners with the opportunity to earn higher margins are therefore critical to long term success in growth markets. Ultimately, it’s end users that will benefit most from effective channel programmes as they create the necessary incentives for local partners to deliver higher value to their customers.”
– Michael Barnes, vice president of Software and Asia Pacific Research, Springboard Research

• “With a long history in offering availability solutions for data protection, with the support of the Symantec Partner Program, we have obtained expertise in security solutions including messaging and Data Loss Prevention. With the enhanced partner programme, we believe we can gain broader technical expertise and continue to offer our customers the best possible technology solutions for their business.”
– Toshiya Matsuoka, operating officer and director, Solution Sales Headquarters, exa Corporation

• “As a platinum partner, we have maintained a close partnership with Symantec for many years. With the newly introduced enhanced Symantec Partner Program, we have gained Specialisations in the areas of Data Loss Prevention and Endpoint Management and we are looking forward to accessing the associated benefits and securing new business opportunities.”
– Jae-Seok Cheong, senior vice president of Korea Business Service Co., Ltd.

• “The enhanced Symantec Partner Program enables us to build our Specialisations and be recognised for our expertise, both by customers and the industry. It helps in differentiating ourselves in the market. Most importantly, Specialisations provide confidence to our customers that we have the skills and product knowledge to help them deliver the business outcome they desire. I am confident that the enhanced partner programme will help Mesiniaga gain more market share and be more profitable in business.”
– Keng Hoe Wong, director of Project Management and Solution Marketing, Mesiniaga Berhad

• “The enhanced Symantec Partner Program provides us with an opportunity to be experts and offer strategic counsel to our customers. We are confident that with continued support from Symantec, we will grow successfully within the partner community.”
– Peter Theobald, senior vice president, Enterprise Sales, Softcell Technologies Limited

Connect with Symantec:
• Partners Community Blog
• Symantec Channel on Twitter
• Symantec on Facebook
• Symantec Asia Pacific Partner Page

About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organisations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

ends

© Scoop Media