Verizon Realigns Partner Program, Revenue Model

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Verizon is revamping its partner program starting April 2.

The telecommunications giant on Wednesday announced a new market strategy, compensation plan, and face of its partner organization.

Bill Hooper, who previously served as managing director of XO Communications’ partner channel, will run Verizon’s channel. Hooper’s new title is director, SMB partner channel, Verizon Business Markets.

Hooper told Channel Partners that the one of the biggest changes is how agents will earn money with Verizon. The partners’ fees have been made more “simplified and competitive” by matching with total billed revenue (TBR). Hooper says partner feedback led to the shift.

Verizon’s Bill Hooper

“We’re going to a TBR-based revenue model for all of the partners, effective April 2. This is something that most of the partners have asked for, and typically most of the industry is doing this. So this was a change for Verizon,” Hooper said.

The AT&T Alliance Channel is one of the channel organizations that recently shook up its model for how partners earn money.

Hooper says excitement for the revenue model is building among partners and Verizon’s channel team.

“It will allow the partners to be able to see their actual customers’ revenue and what they’re bringing to the table,” he said. ” We’ll have a compensation model designed to move to, then pay, the partners going forward in 2018 and beyond. It’s a good deal.”

He says the Verizon Partner Program also researched how it can support partners in different coverage models. For example, certain partners work with larger, more global customer accounts within Verizon Enterprise Solutions (VES).

“We determined that that model really did require a different operating structure and support structure. So we aligned an organization within the VES operating group to support those partners,” Hooper said.

The other main segment Verizon considered was partners taking on midmarket and small business customers. Verizon Business Markets will support this demographic, offering a specific set of channel resources. Both segments get their own sales and engineering support.

“It didn’t cost us any resources. We actually added resources to support both segments as we went into 2018, so that we could effectively provide them what they need — both at the partner and the customer level,” Hooper said.

Other major announcements are a new U.S. master agent model that Verizon will implement in order to give subagents “extended support.” Verizon also says it is adding partners and solutions to support its global resale model.

Hooper says the changes represent a “natural evolution” for the Verizon Partner Program.

“We have done all of this in a specific, strategic effort to prove to the partner community how dedicated we are and our commitment to the partner channel and their customers,” he said. “We made some conscious decisions to do this.”

The Verizon Partner Program sits across both Verizon Enterprise Solutions and …

… Verizon Business Markets (VBM). Verizon Business Markets came into existence just over a year ago with the intention of targeting SMBs, educational institutions, and state and local governments.

2017 featured the acquisition of XO Communications, its integration with Verizon Business Markets and the departure of VBM chief Janet Schijns to Office Depot.

Bill Hooper was on hand at the recent WTG Tee & Sea event in Scottsdale, Arizona. He spoke on a panel with CenturyLink, AT&T and WTG about how partners can help customers transform digitally.