Saurabh Saxena, Country Director, Micro Focus, India, shares the company’s channel strategies for 2019
Key highlights 2018 and opportunities for 2019
We have been focused on powering digital transformation for our partners and customers alike – helping organisations run their business and transform it. Our software provides the critical tools they need to build, operate, secure, and analyse their enterprise. By design, these tools bridge the gap between existing and emerging technologies, enabling faster innovation, with less risk, in the race to digital transformation.
In 2019, we will introduce our flagship program, the new, combined Micro Focus Partner Program for Resellers, which covers all products across Micro Focus. In conjunction with the new program, we are upgrading our partner portal, wherein we are investing US$ 5 million into improving system capability to ensure we improve your experience of working with Micro Focus.
Top tech trends for channel community
Firstly, partners need organisations who make it easy for them to do business with. As we go forward, we are simplifying the program to a single Global Program with three partner tiers – Authorised, Gold and Platinum. This program is delivered on a single platform and set of processes – standardising and automating as far as possible to improve your experience.
We also want to help our partners take advantage of the significant cross-sell potential in adjacent solutions like Platespin and Hybrid Cloud Management or IAM and Data Security (Voltage). We will achieve this with the introduction of Portfolio Expert Accreditations.
Partners need a program that delivers healthy, predictable profitability, and benefits. All rebates as we go forward will be paid out as back end payments ensuring you keep the margin. Besides, we are introducing sourced benefits across the board; paying partners on initial support and have significantly improved our offering on SaaS – paying out on up to three years upfront.
Channel directions for partners
Our partners need to be prepared for the new Partner Portal which is going to deliver at a high level. This will include a completely new user interface, which will help in creating quotes and placing orders. The new UX will work on Sales Force, which means that we will be able to build on the integrated Q2O capability.
We have got a very strong MDF program that is available to Gold and Platinum Partners. Once again, the principle is simple – we work with you to co-fund marketing activities to generate awareness and drive end user demand for Micro Focus products and solutions. You can also work with Micro Focus marketing and gain access to a wealth of campaigns and pre-packaged resources that can be leveraged to deliver multi-channel integrated campaigns.
