Citrix Systems Inc. last month launched a new rewards program for its channel partners to keep their loyalty.
“”Channel partners have a number of options with respect to where they put their resources and their energy,”” said Bill Ferara, director of Citrix channel sales in North America. “”We
want to ensure that they continue to focus on Citrix as the technology becomes more robust. One way to do that would be to reward these customers on the back end in the value selling activities that they conducted with the customer.””
The new program, called Advisor Rewards, provides monetary rewards for Citrix Solution Advisors who register deals and submit sales forecasts to channel territory managers earlier in the process of selling Citrix volume licensing products, and who provide value-based solutions selling around the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite.
Depending on the licensing program used, the fixed commission rate ranges from seven to 10 per cent. Partners eligible for the program include all 5,000 Citrix Solution Advisors within the Citrix Access Partner network. There are 7,000 partners in the network worldwide with 1,500 in the Citrix Alliance Partners and 1,000 in the Citrix Certified Professionals and Education Partners categories. Citrix has 259 channel partners in Canada alone.
The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based application server software vendor also simplified and renamed its VAR group. Now called Citrix Access Partner network, it’s been reduced to three categories: Solution Advisors, Alliance Partners and Certified Professionals and Education Partners.
“”It was time to put it under one umbrella. Within that are the subsets based on how the partners go to market,”” said Ferara.
Citrix Solution Advisors, resellers and distributors of Citrix products formerly known as Citrix Solutions Network (CSN) members can receive up to 10 per cent incremental margin on the suggested listing price of the products sold.
Channel partners benefit from gaining a deeper understanding of Citrix access infrastructure capabilities, Ferara said, while customers get the best product pricing and optimum service levels. Other benefits include two revenue streams, reselling software licences and earning post-sale rewards for demonstrated value selling.
David Fung, president of Charon Systems Inc. in Toronto, said he’s happy that Citrix has decided to go in this direction.
“”Everybody’s talking about putting profitability and profit margin back into the channel, which is of course from a channel point of view, a very good thing.
“”We expect that we’ll be able to make more money. Not only are they putting the profit back into the channel, they’re setting the requirements higher for the channel members to qualify.””