LOS ANGELES – Symantec has gone through a lot in the last 12 months with the Veritas Technologies split and the acquisition of Blue Coat. The year has also taken a toll on Symantec Canada that saw most of its senior leadership decide to move over to Veritas instead of Symantec.
With that Keith Weatherford, Symantec’s vice president of Americas channels, told CDN there is a two phase plan to build up Symantec Canada. Currently there is only one channel account manager (CAM) in the country, but the former Blue Coat executive is working on hiring two more by the end of the year.
“We are so under-covered in Canada and we are looking to hire more CAMs to better our geographic and partner coverage,” he said.
Ajay Sood
Weatherford has also hired a Canadian country leader in Ajay Sood, the former head of sales for FireEye Inc. Sood will hold the title of Vice President and GM – Canada at Symantec. He also has experience at McAfee, Cisco and Trend Micro.
“My message for Canada is that I view it as a great growth opportunity and now that we have a strong leader we can go and invest more in the Canadian market. And, I know that if we invest heavily the business will follow,” Weatherford said.
Increase headcount is being planned for Symantec Canada, but don’t expect a Canadian channel chief. That’s coming in phase two of the build-up that will come with another CAM hire.
As of now Weatherford is completely responsible for all channel sales and operations in the Canadian market.
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Canada is not the only region Weatherford is interested in growing.
Expect to see more field resources in the Americas that are tied into the sales organization. These resources will carry a number of reps who will lend support and be that front line person for channel partners.
“They will be consultants and coaches for the new program. They will know who it works for and will help the channel learn how to use it. That piece is not in the Symantec program today, but it is in the Blue Coat model and we shall put that in,” he added.
Currently both Symantec and Blue Coat channel teams and programs are staying in place. But Symantec is working on a joint action plan that will combine the two channel programs for launch sometime in April of 2017.