Citrix Canada country manager Michael Murphy addressed the Canadian market implications of the vendors recently announced Citrix Solution Advisor (CSA) program.
Murphy told CDN, in an exclusive interview, that this program was long overdue as most mainstream vendors have already gone through this processes of rewarding and prioritizing ways for the channel to invest in go-to-market strategies.
The Citrix Solution Advisor program or CSA enables solution providers the flexibility to choose which Citrix specializations or competencies (virtualization, networking for the data centre, mobility management and networking for apps) most relevant to their business in areas of virtualization, mobility management and networking, as well as add other skills according to scale.
“Before we had certification and now going to group them into those four categories and partners can focus on one area, while traditional partners who have technical certifications in virtualization do not have to play in the others,” Murphy said.
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CSA still have the metalize tiers of silver, gold and platinum along with an additional layer that focuses on vertical markets.
The new partner requirements will not impact current partners for another two years, but it will not mean the new incentives will be at all delayed. Murphy said channel partners will be earning these new incentives from day one.
“Partners will have a chance to earn higher level of margins with CSA; greater than 50 per cent,” he said.
These incentives will be in all tiers and include a five per cent bonus and 50 points of margin on the back end. There are other benefits such as enhanced support and an opportunity to become a part of the Citrix Advisory Council.
According to Murphy, if a solution provider where to maximize on all of the new incentives they would earn up to 40 points of margin just on the transaction. Certified partners get 22 per cent on top of their own margin, which they negotiate with customers along with 10 per cent margins on registering the deal. This is 11 per cent more than the previous plan, Murphy added.
“We need a good balance of partners in in Canada and sometimes this is lost in the U.S. I need good geographic distribution and sometimes partners cannot be all things to all people. The partners who are skilled or are specialized are typically geographically discreet; in Calgary or Toronto and do not play in Quebec. All partners having a national presence is not going to happen. I would like these four specializations with a good number of partners in each area,” he said.