A British Columbia VAR believes SAP’s new partner program will put his company ahead of colleagues selling the same software.
“It’s a good idea, said Peter van Leeuwen of Coastal Range Systems of Vancouver, who added that the new system “seems to be well designed.”
SAP has announced that it will shortly begin signing up North American partners to its three-level PartnerEdge program, which it has introduced everywhere else in the world.
In Canada, the company vows to sign its 22 partners selling the Windows-based Business One and eight mySAP All-in-One enterprise resource applications to the new program before the end of the year.
The program moves partners from a single-level royalty-based fee schedule to one that gives product discounts for points earned on a combination of revenue, certifications, customer satisfaction and other activities.
Van Leeuwen said moving to a three-level program that separates partners on their abilities will help his company, which he believes is the biggest Business One VAR in the nation. “Right now we’re at the same playing field as a brand-new partner that walks in tomorrow,” he said.
“Coastal’s been doing this for three years so we don’t have any competitive advantage over someone that signs up tomorrow from a pricing or anything like that point of view. We probably have 25 certified consultants, where somebody else might have one consultant. The ParnterEdge program will give us an advantage.”
Conrad Mandala, SAP Canada’s vice-president for small and medium business, said Tuesday the new program is “meant to make sure we retain our partners and help them grow as big as they can.”
While it’s designed to be revenue-neutral over the existing program, he said “some of our partners are going to make more money” because PartnerEdge offers enhanced market development funds (MDF) and marketing programs, which will drive customers leads.
PartnerEdge creates three levels of VARs: gold, silver and associate. Members automatically move to the next level based on the number of Value Points accumulated. The points targets are weighted in favour of revenue (60 per cent), but there are efforts to reward partners for activities as simple as keeping their Web site up to date. SAP publicity material says that an online e-learning format “makes it a snap” for partners to get their sales and technical staff certified.
Gold partners get the highest product discount, the highest percentage of MDF money and comprehensive technical support. Silver partners get a lower product discount and MDF money an only “enhanced” technical support.
ISV partners, who will be added next year, will earn points for creating solutions built on SAP applications.
Perhaps just as important is SAP’s shift to fixed pricing for Business One, aimed at small and mid-sized companies, and All-in-One, a version of the full mySAP suite aimed at verticals.
“We’ve created a highly-empowered way for our partners to make money,” said Mandala. We will now be going to a program where they will be true resellers. Based on their level they will purchase software from us and reselling it at market price.
“That’s extremely powerful for our partners, because from the beginning they’ll be able to know exactly what they’re going to buy the software from SAP for. They know exactly what money they’re going to make up front and they can plan their businesses accordingly.”
“Going to a fixed price gives them the ability to create programs and pricing they think the market will support,” he added.
Mandala also said he’s looking for more Business One partners, particularly those who have offices in more than one province. He’s also looking for VARs who want to carry All-in-One who specialize in retail, manufacturing and energy sectors.
“If the mid-market in Canada is going to represent 50 per cent of all IT spending – and I believe it will – we need to have a partner network to handle that growth,” Mandala said, “and part of that is to empower partners to be the best business people they can.”