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| | April 12, 2006 |  |
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Top Layer expands channel program
12 April, 2006
By Robert Dutt |
Intrusion prevention vendor Top Layer Networks has expanded its channel program in a bid to get a cohesive look at its entire channel.
The vendor already does three quarters of its revenue through the channel, but according to Adam Hills, director of product marketing, the company's channel efforts to date have lacked a single focus.
"It's been scattershot -- more tactical than strategic," Hills said. "Every account rep, every relationship we had was not built in a structured way."
Now the vendor is looking to formalize things, build in structure and most importantly, build in incentives for partners to build up relationships with the vendor.
"We're trying to take a good channel program and make it stickier and more valuable to them," Hill said.
The first change is a tiering program, which will limit premier status to a select number of partners who do a lot of business for the vendor in specific geographies. The company currently has 85 to 100 partners in the United States, and is looking to grow that number, but aims to keep the Premier level to three to five close partners in a given area, VARs with experience in networking and security, and who offer a certain level of scale and revenue. They must be willing to commit to having Top Layer as their lead intrusion prevention solution, and in return, get higher margins on product, more marketing support including a quarterly joint marketing program, a program only offered twice-yearly to regular partners.
Primarily, Hill said the company would be working with smaller and medium-sized resellers.
"There's a lot of larger partners where we'd get lost in the shuffle," he said. "We're looking for people who get security, and get networking, and have a real interest in getting into intrusion prevention or finding a better solution to make it happen."
At the same time, the vendor has changed the way its internal sales force works to make sure there is not internal conflict between direct and channel teams. And now, it's setting itself up to grow its channel community, while simultaneously building up relationships with existing partners.
"We're looking for the right cadre of partners with the right expertise who can grow with us and really become partners instead of just order fulfillers," Hill said. "And we're well on the way to doing that now.
The program is North American in scope, and is different from the company's model abroad. In Europe and Asia, the company leans heavily on value-added distributors to provide support for the channel.
"That model is great, but we feel here that we need to be really interacting with our partners and driving their success," Hill said.
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| | 1,460 |
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| | 419,343 |
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| | 44,781,455 |
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| | $49,567,397,483 |
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