BeyondTrust Partners Get Enhanced Partner Program with Expanded Support
BeyondTrust has reduced the number of its partner agreements from five to one.
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The PartnerTrust program includes the following simplified processes:
An online, fully automated partner agreement with a click-to-accept process.
Co-delivery program to accelerate the implementation of BeyondTrust solutions.
A distributor quoting pilot program enabling a faster quoting process for BeyondTrust solutions.
A streamlined certification process that leverages authorized ecosystem partners for practical assessments and decreases the time to earn implementation certifications.
BeyondTrust’s Rob Spee said partner input was instrumental when formulating the partner program updates.
“We get a lot of partner feedback in a variety of ways,” he said. “We have a partner advisory board, and that’s one area where we’re constantly talking to them about our program and iterations, and improvements that we’re looking to make to the program and get their feedback on that. We also do partner surveys now. We’ve introduced a quarterly survey that we’re running and we do that to get partner feedback. But also, we’re now collecting partner net promoter scores (NPS).
“So we want to track partner experience, and that’s one way for us to measure it. And as we’re building it, we’re constantly getting their feedback of, ‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking of adding. What do you think in all the different components?’ One of the most recent adds was expanding our badging. We already had individual badging, but now we’re adding more partner-level badging saying, ‘Hey, I’m a service delivery partner badge or an expert service delivery partner badge, that type of thing.’ And there are ways that they can earn those badges.”
BeyondTrust has to surround the customer with a partner ecosystem that is connected and enabled to deliver business outcomes, Spee said. So enablement is “really huge for us.”
“I think it’s the enablement components, and also verifying that the partner is enabled and delivering high quality is an important part of that,” he said. “So both in the individual badging, as well as the company-level badging, we’ve added that path to getting enabled and then showing that you have that capability. So on the delivery side, for example, the partner can request an NPS score from the customer on the delivery work that they did. That’s a way for us to gauge that. And then what we’re doing next is we’re going to have a way that the partners can demonstrate that on our website. So that’s coming.
But the partner program sets the stage for all of the enablement components that will then be shared on the website publicly to customers, because customers don’t care so much today whether your partner is platinum or silver. What they care about is what expertise they have in my industry. What expertise do they have in delivering privileged access management (PAM), or delivering BeyondTrust and integrating it with ServiceNow, those types of things. They want to see that level of expertise. So the program documents and codifies that. And then we’re going to share it on our website with a new partner locator we’ll be rolling out in the second half of the year.”
Spee said there’s a lot of complexity in terms of execution within BeyondTrust, “but we try to shield the partner from that.”
“So we’re trying to keep the program simple,” he said. “No. 1, we do a click-through partner agreement. So it’s very simple to go to our partner portal and read the terms set up from day one just on a single agreement. If I want to be a reseller, a service delivery partner or an MSP, it’s all allowed under that one agreement. We don’t want five different agreements, which is what we had before. We simplified it down to one. We’re trying to make the enablement as easy as possible. The enablement is online, and then there are some live workshops that we do to help the partner reach the final steps of certification and then advanced workshops to elevate their skills.”
The biggest challenge amid economic uncertainty is customers are taking longer to make decisions, Spee said.
“The biggest competitor for us is not CyberArk or Delinea,” he said. “It’s really the customer indecision and not moving forward. And typically the reason for that is … sometimes it’s easier to postpone a decision and that feels less risky than actually taking a step forward. Even though we know that it’s good for the business, we’re hesitant to make that decision.
One of the ways that we can reduce that perceived risk is to have partners who can come in and say, ‘Hey, I’ve done this before; here’s my use case of what I’ve done. And also, not only are you buying BeyondTrust, but there’s a whole path toward zero trust because of the integrations with Okta, SailPoint, Ping Identity and Jamf, and all these other things. So I can see a whole path toward zero trust, that journey toward zero trust. These are the things that we’re doing through our partner channel that help address that, and we think that helps us. We think it also helps our partners to win that business because we’ve all got to win the business to get the product in place, and then the partner can start working on the implementations and integrations.”
With PartnerTrust in mind, BeyondTrust is focused on executing the new strategy and new partner program, and making sure partners are taking advantage of all the different components of the program, Spee said.
“For example, we just rolled out something in our partner portal called ‘partner journeys,'” he said. “These are enablement paths for these partners of all these different partner types. … [There is] expertise that they want to gain, whether it’s selling expertise, delivery expertise, integration expertise, whatever it might be. We’re introducing these new partner journeys so we’re executing, making incremental improvements and launching them as we make them. And then we want to make sure that our partners are aware of them, and take advantage of those new features and offerings that we have.”
With PartnerTrust in mind, BeyondTrust is focused on executing the new strategy and new partner program, and making sure partners are taking advantage of all the different components of the program, Spee said.
“For example, we just rolled out something in our partner portal called ‘partner journeys,'” he said. “These are enablement paths for these partners of all these different partner types. … [There is] expertise that they want to gain, whether it’s selling expertise, delivery expertise, integration expertise, whatever it might be. We’re introducing these new partner journeys so we’re executing, making incremental improvements and launching them as we make them. And then we want to make sure that our partners are aware of them, and take advantage of those new features and offerings that we have.”
BeyondTrust partners are getting new and updated tools, processes and personnel resources in the company’s partner program, now called PartnerTrust.
Partners will gain numerous benefits from the enhancements. These include having more control over their partner experience with BeyondTrust, and expanded support for helping their customer deployments succeed.
The PartnerTrust program enhancements create better enablement, greater engagement and simplified processes. Among the enhancements:
A partner knowledge base for easier access to product and service documentation.
Partner journeys for easy, focused enablement on topics relevant to individual partners.
BeyondTech face-to-face technical training expansion to bring BeyondTrust and partner technical personnel together for training and collaboration.
Additional Resources for BeyondTrust Partners
Additional resources include adding more national channel account manager, services partner manager, emerging market and partner success roles.
Here’s our most recent list of important channel-program changes you should know. |
Rob Spee, BeyondTrust’s senior vice president of global channel and alliances, joined the company in late 2021, and his mission was to “take us from a traditional transactional VAR channel to a modern, next-gen partner ecosystem.”
BeyondTrust’s Rob Spee
“So we have been making small iterations to the partner program since I joined, and we believe that we’ve gotten it to a stage where it really robustly supports the ecosystem, meaning all the new partner motions that we’re working with, the service delivery partners, the GSIs, the MSPs, it’s the program basics, benefits requirements, but also everything else in support of those partner types,” he said. “And we’ve been really pushing and promoting this ecosystem approach. And we wanted to really make a splash and help the partners recognize how serious we are about this. So we rebranded or actually gave it a brand, PartnerTrust, because all relationships are founded on trust.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for more about what BeyondTrust partners can expect from the updated partner program.
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