Trellix Partners Get Revamped Xtend Program

Trellix partners now have access to the cybersecurity vendor’s revamped Xtend partner program.

Trellix partners now have a partnership model that focuses on mutual growth, profitability and long-term success as they help customers fight evolving cyber threats through the company’s AI-powered security platform.

In addition, Trellix has expanded Kurt Mills' role to senior vice president and global channel chief.

“We’ve got a very clear vision and road map for Trellix, and remaining channel-first continues to be part of our strategy,” he said. “As we’ve evolved, we’ve seen an opportunity to simplify our training to align with how partners go to market, and reward their enablement and readiness to position Trellix in the market.” 

Trellix's Kurt Mills

Making It Easier for Trellix Partners to Do Business

Cyber changes so quickly, and Trellix launched its partner program when the company was just a year in the market, Mills said.

“As we’ve grown, we’re really hearing from the market the excitement for things like network detection and response (NDR) and our AI foundation, Trellix Wise,” he said. “We knew it was time to refresh our program to make it easier for our partners to do business. With the program updates, we’re meeting partners where they are and making it easier to sell our solutions across the entire Trellix security platform. Ultimately, the refresh is driven by a desire for us to deliver on the momentum we are seeing from partners and the solutions that excite them and that their customers are seeking.”

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Trellix took feedback from its partner community to inform the soft launch of its revised program in the fourth quarter of 2024, Mills said.

“We had continuous engagement with those reviewing the program benefits and enablement offerings to make further improvements and adjustments,” he said. “The most vital piece of feedback our partners provided was the challenge to know how to talk about Trellix overall in the market. This makes sense; we’re relatively new, but have a long history of business steeped in our legacy and an incredibly wide set of solutions. This told us we really needed to shift how we were enabling our partners with education and lead us to our technical specialization offerings. Through these, partners can focus really on what technologies they sell and their specific customer base more easily, versus having to navigate a robust ecosystem of education and collateral. It’s about making it easier for them to do business with us, and ensuring our program fits seamlessly into how they go to market.”

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More Touch Points from Trellix

Trellix Xtend is built on four pillars: coverage, competency, contribution and commitment.

“Partners should expect more touch points from Trellix with the newest iteration of our Trellix Xtend partner program,” Mills said. “The refreshed program delivers entirely new engagement leveraging our partner portal, to help deliver new training and content, and technical specializations across our core solution sets. Most importantly, it’s been built to provide our partners with a much deeper and richer experience. This means more collaboration, more profitability across an account life cycle, and most importantly, more value for our partners through more rebates, incentives and go-to-market support based on a fresh tiering system.”

The main objective with updating the program was to make it easier to do business with Trellix, and based on the feedback and momentum, “we feel confident we’re delivering there,” he said.

“With a revamped partner management portal and enhanced learning program, partners are now able to address a wider breadth of customer needs across both industries and geographies,” Mills said. “Partners can further develop technical specializations across endpoint security, NDR, extended detection and response (XDR), data security, and email and collaboration security. Through various advanced training offerings, certifications and tools, partners are better positioned as trusted advisors that are fully capable of solving increasingly complex cybersecurity challenges.”

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Building on this, additional resources aim to accelerate partners’ success, he said.

“Our partners' success is our success, and we’re carving out time and talent dedicated to business planning in concert with our partners,” Mills said. “This ensures we have a vehicle to collect feedback and truly understand our partners' strengths and objectives, and then deliver the enablement needed to realize plans.”