Focusing on fewer committed partners will increase margins and foster better long term relationships
London, United Kingdom: A10 Networks™, the technology leader in Application Networking, has launched a new partner programme in EMEA that will focus on a smaller community to offer an expanded set of benefits to committed partners. In the larger EMEA territories, the new "Ten4A10" programme will have a maximum 10 members with one distributor, two Gold, three Silver and four Bronze partners to deliver true transparency across the partner community.
"Our new programme is based on the current state of the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) market and feedback from our partners," said Andre Stewart, Vice President Sales EMEA for A10 Networks, "If you look at the vendor landscape, we have F5 Networks with an over extended channel that is fighting over margin while selling an overpriced product. Cisco has deserted the ADC sector and is pushing its channel to compete with Citrix partners in offering NetScaler. There are other smaller rivals such as Radware and Kemp but neither of these have the depth of solution that enterprise customers require."
“Our channel partners are looking for a vendor with a commitment and product set that allows them to maintain a profitable long term relationship. Our new Ten4A10 programme states our intention to truly focus on quality over quantity and matches our words with benefits for the partners who are prepared to commit."
A10 Networks is 100% channel centric within EMEA and currently has around 70 transacting partners served through distribution. With the launch of the new programme, only a maximum of 10 per country will be supported directly through a channel manager with an associated set of benefits around training, support and marketing. A10 Networks will increase margins by approximately 10% across all tiers with additional margin uplift through deal registration and customer reference programmes.
"We do not want hundreds of partners across EMEA as we then end up in the unfortunate situation that F5 Networks finds itself where partners are locked in destructive competition that results in extremely slim margins," explains Stewart. "Instead, we will work closely with each partner on 10 target accounts to help grow or win new business instead of spreading our resources too thinly which helps neither us as a company, our partners or end-customers." The new partner programme offers a comprehensive set of benefits that increase based on tier level