Barracuda enhances partner programme

The summer is often a slower period for the channel, but apparently not for the teams responsible for devising and implementing partner programmes, with this week already seeing moves on the partner programme front as vendors look to improve life and make it more rewarding for their channel bases.

Barracuda Networks has announced several enhancements to its partner programme to encourage its channel to increase their security expertise. A number of tweaks have been made to the firm’s Partner Success Programme, with the aim of encouraging the development of more expertise, to improve efficiency and to help uncover more opportunities.

The vendor has developed a channel marketing automation offering that allows its partners to build campaigns, which should improve their experience working with the vendor. There are also plans to shortly introduce a partner locator option that is designed to increase their visibility with customers.

The ambition is to use enhancements to improve partner engagement, enablement and fuel their growth opportunities as they pitch the vendor’s BarracudaONE cyber resilience platform.

“At Barracuda, our partners are at the centre of every decision we make, from product innovation to go-to-market execution,” said Michelle Hodges, senior vice-president of global channels and alliances at Barracuda.

“We’re creating more opportunities for partners to engage customers, sharpen differentiation and grow their business – and making it easier than ever to do so. These enhancements reflect our ongoing commitment and our belief that partner success drives superior customer outcomes,” she added.

At the same time, Barracuda signalled that it is extending the recently launched Mastery Programme with increased training options and technical labs and sales support.

Barracuda shared thoughts from Sean Furman, president at STF Consulting, who viewed the enhancements as an opportunity to gain more certifications and differentiate further from the competition: “These investments elevate our credibility as a strategic adviser and translate directly into greater customer value, stronger retention and new opportunities to grow high margin recurring revenue.”

Over at fellow security player Titania, the decision to appoint Wayne Hollinshead as channel leader has been described as s a major step towards introducing a partner programme. One of his key responsibilities will be to lead the firm’s global channel strategy, which includes oversight of the development of the firm’s partner programmes. He comes with experience building programmes at other security vendors, so is ideally placed to help the firm develop an offering that will support and reward its channel base.

Tom Platt, sales director at Titania, said it had been a bust time for the firm, with the recent launch of its Nipper OmniSight network exposure management platform: “Our proprietary Nipper technology has earned the trust of governments, defence organisations, critical national infrastructure and other highly regulated industries for more than a decade.

“With the launch of Nipper OmniSight, we’re entering an exciting new phase of growth by bringing someone of Wayne’s calibre on board. His appointment represents an important investment in our channel strategy as we build the programmes, support and engagement model that will enable our partners to grow successful business with Titania.”

Hollinshead said he was keen to start working with the security player’s partners and get to work on providing the support needed to continue growing the business: “Throughout my career I’ve been fortunate to help build a channel around technologies that have gone on to define important cyber security categories.

“I’m excited to work with partners around the world to build a channel experience that helps them to identify new opportunities, deliver value for customers and grow their businesses alongside Titania.”