New Channel Programs, Incentives: Cisco, Windstream, VMware, AWS, More

Vendors are rolling out new training, support and incentives for their channel partners.

The supplier side of the information and communications technology channel continues to make strides to attract indirect sellers. That comes as more and more companies, such as Secureworks, are shifting to a “partner-first” go-to-market motion. Especially as mass layoffs hit the enterprise technology space, it makes sense that vendors are relying more on partners to help them scale.

That being said, vendors differ significantly in how they try to give value to partners. For example, Okta announced a points-based reward system that recognizes “pure revenue contribution,” while NetApp moved way from such an approach to give the channel incentives for competency and life cycle participation. Some companies are leaning into marketplaces and ecosystems, while other providers are staying away.

Other trends are more widely popular, such as increased digital capabilities – a carrier brought more automation into the quoting tool in its portal – and more specializations — which Cisco unveiled to support its most loyal partners.

But that’s not all. Providers all across the IT and telecommunications landscape made changes to their partner programs last month.

Scroll through the 16 images above to read about new or updated programs serving the indirect business technology sales channel.

You can also see our previous new programs slide show..