NCR Invites Variety of Partners with Expanded Program

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Self-checkout provider NCR this week unveiled an expansion to its channel program aimed at allowing partners to sell additional products, including enterprise software, professional services, maintenance and managed services, to complement its core products.

NCR’s Dean Madsen

With the program, partners now can address a larger customer base across the banking, retail and hospitality industries in existing as well as new geographies to go deeper into the various markets, the company said. Also, NCR wants to attract new types of partners such as SIs, telecommunication companies or software partners, as well as partners that currently sell competitive or adjacent products.

Dean Madsen, NCR’s global head of channel strategy, tells Channel Partners the market is moving more to software and cloud, and “we wanted to enable our partners to take advantage of that with our products and grow together.”

“We see one of our biggest growth opportunities in channel and we wanted to make it possible for our current partners to expand their footprint, reach and portfolio,” he said. “We also want to appeal to new types of partners that give us the opportunity to sell into new customers.”

NCR’s enhanced channel program has three tiered levels – Advanced, Premier and Elite – and it rewards channel partners not only based on volume of sales, but other key criteria such as customer satisfaction, net new customers and/or product innovation.

The three barriers NCR addressed with the expanded program were limitations in geography, portfolio and customer size, Madsen said.

“The biggest change is that we moved from a program that rewards volume to a program that also rewards value,” he said. “We are now rewarding partners that are investing in their business by getting training and building their knowledge, that are growing their portfolio and are providing high customer satisfaction.”

NCR has introduced a new, convertible self-checkout solution that can be used as an assisted point-of-sale (POS) system in peak times. For the financial services industry, NCR released a new family of ATMs, the SelfServ 80 Series.

Red Rook, a provider of omni-channel solutions for both online and in-store commerce, has been working with NCR and its Counterpoint specialty retail management system for more than 10 years.

“But becoming an Elite channel partner as an omni-channel technology expert in 2017 has already had a massive impact on our organization,” said Jason Burge, Red Rook’s chief marketing officer/strategic partnerships. “With enhanced support from NCR, we’ve grown our omni-channel client base by 26 percent this year, and doubled the number of other NCR affiliates we’re engaging to help increase their productivity in retail commerce. It’s an exponential leap for all involved, and marks an exciting new era in our NCR relationship.”