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By Gina Roos

Genband, a developer of multimedia and cloud communications solutions, has signed Arrow Electronics as a reseller of its Nuvia cloud services and suite of on-premise enterprise solutions. Nuvia will be sold through the distributor’s Arrow S3 business as its flagship cloud offering under the SynapS3 ucCLOUD brand.

Arrow S3—which provides unified communications, voice and data technology, and network security—is a new partner under GENBAND’s recently upgraded partner program.

One of the key changes to the Genband Partner Advantage Program is the addition of multitiered partnerships, which segment partners by Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze levels, based on their level of commitment. It also provides new and enhanced benefits based on the reseller’s partner level.

The new benefits include better discounts on products and services, co-op marketing funds, customized joint-marketing planning, on-site sales and pre-sales workshops, on-demand training videos and testing for salespeople, participation in the Partner Spotlight program (Platinum & Gold partners), and custom-brandable sales and marketing collateral. All partners have full access to Genband’s new partner portal, which houses sales collateral, materials, videos and Webinars.

“We wanted to offer our partners a more simple and structured program that provides them with additional enhanced benefits as a reward for their commitment to partner with us,” said Jeff Enderle, vice president of global channel marketing at Genband. The program also makes it easier to do business with with company, he added.

Genband looks for partners with either a national or regional footprint, as well as partners that are highly specialized in specific verticals or niche markets, including health care, government, finance and retail. The company has added 15 to 20 new enterprise partners, including Arrow S3 as a Platinum Partner, since the relaunch of the program. In total, Genband has 65 partners globally.

The Arrow S3 announcement changes the business model in the marketplace, said Andy Asava, senior vice president of enterprise sales for Genband. “Traditional VARs have been selling on-premise solutions and wrapping their services around it,” he said, “but the trend in the industry is to take those solutions and move them into the cloud. So, instead of doing a capital outlay, the transaction is an operational expenditure—a monthly recurring charge.”

Genband wanted to leverage its new partner program to ensure that its key VARs will be relevant in this value chain around cloud-space unified communications delivery, said Asava.

The partnerships don’t require a huge capital outlay. Nuvia offers the advantages of cloud-based services, including pay-as-you-grow business, and a flexible service delivery model that allows for brand differentiation. Enterprise partners can create their own applications on top of the Genband platform for specific verticals.

“This enables partners to create valuable intellectual property around the applications front that they can own and bring to the marketplace,” said Asava.

Genband launched Nuvia in February as a secure multimedia communications cloud services offering for service providers and channel partners to brand and offer unified communications and rich communications suite (RCS) service applications to enterprise and consumer markets.