Centrify Revamps Partner Program

Centrify, a provider of Unified Identity Services across data center, cloud and mobile applications, has rebranded its partner program to better support the needs of its solution providers—including resellers, distributors, integrators and consultants—as the company continues to move into the cloud and mobile markets.

“We have always been channel-centric,” said Nathan Adams, director, Centrify North American Channels. “The program we had was great, but when trying to scale with the environment and the growing industries we’re playing in, there was a need to incentivize partners that were committing more resources.”

Centrify had a good deal registration program that was open to both signed and non-signed partners. So the questions, according to Adams, were: “How can we get our partners to commit more resources? How can we provide more resources and enable [our partners] to be more successful in selling these technologies? How can we leverage some of the non-signed partners to adhere to our program?”

In addition, Centrify wanted to ensure that the program would align with its partners’ different business models and the ways they market and provide solutions to their customers. This included revamping a lot of content to provide vertically focused (by industry) and solution set-focused (data center, mobility/BYOD and cloud/SaaS) collateral and materials.

The Centrify Channel Partner Network is a new tiered program designed to help channel partners meet the pain points of their customers. This involves helping them improve security, meet compliance requirements, reduce IT expenses, and extend and enable cloud and mobile enterprises by providing channel partners with technical training, sales tools and collateral to help them provide design, deployment and support services. This enables partners to increase profits based on software licenses, maintenance and renewal sales, according to Centrify.

One of the biggest changes to the partner program is the tiered partnership levels —Premier, Select and Authorized—which give greater benefits to partners with higher commitment levels. All partners have access to sales and marketing resources, including a partner portal that houses sales kits, collateral, online training and marketing assets.

Another change is that partners are required to have Centrify sales-certified and technical-certified employees. Centrify launched its certification program for partners last year.

Premier partners (there are currently four) receive the highest level of benefits, including the most competitive deal registration discounts, access to sales tools and collateral, reward programs, marketing funds such as demand-generation activities, and sales leads.

To become a Select partner, providers must commit to both selling Centrify solutions and using them internally. These partners also need to show a core competency in at least one area, such as data center/server, cloud/SaaS or mobility.

All entry-level partners join the program as Authorized partners and must meet the minimum sales and technical training requirements. Centrify offers a Fast Track program to help partners move quickly to the next level.