Asigra Inc., a Toronto-based data protection, backup and recovery software solutions vendor, last week launched its first-ever partner program, better known as the Hybrid Partner Program, to meet the needs of its current partners and to also attract new ones.
Eran Farajun, executive vice-president at Asigra, said the company didn’t have a partner program in place before the launch of its Hybrid Partner Program. With 500 partners around the globe and growing, Farajun said it made sense for the company to come up with a formalized channel program to better serve its partners.
“The Hybrid Partner Program is a North American program and we want it to reflect the way our customers access our technology as a service through the partner,” he said. “It’s called the Hybrid Partner Program because our partners do two things. They sell software, and they also provide managed backup services.”
Currently, the company has 25 partners in Canada with plans to add more now that a formal partner program has been established.
“We’re looking to broaden our channel reach in Canada and we think having a formalized program will help us do that,” Farajun adds.
In Canada, Farajun said he hopes to have between 75 and 100 partners in total. Worldwide, he said the company hopes to grow to no more than 3,000 partners. The company does not work with distributors to distribute its solutions, but instead, relies 100 per cent on the channel. That’s why the company wants to keep its partner base around 3,000 or lower.
Asigra’s primary target markets include the manufacturing, legal, professional services, financial and healthcare sectors. The company’s flagship Hybrid Cloud Backup and Recovery software solution is an agent-less, scalable backup and recovery platform that lets end-users move data into and out of the cloud.
Partners can earn anywhere between 32 to 49 per cent margins on Asigra’s software solutions, Farajun said. The company also has its Influencer Incentive offering available to its partners, which allows partners a 15 per cent commission on a registered deal even if they happen to lose the sale to another Asigra partner.
The Hybrid Partner Program is designed as a tiered partner program, which offers partners different levels of support and incentive offerings. At the base level of the program is a Named Partner. These are partners who have a limited amount of business opportunities in the backup and recovery space. A VAR Hybrid Partner allows partners to resell the software solution, or managed backup services, which is hosted by what Asigra calls a 3D Hybrid Partner. An MSP Hybrid Partner is a partner who resells the software platform while still manages their own vault infrastructure for cloud backup service delivery. A 3D Hybrid Partner lets partners resell the platform solution, provided they’re also able to support their own infrastructure for cloud backup service delivery. And finally, a Fasttrack partner receives even more promotional offers and benefits from Asigra.
“A Fasttrack Hybrid Partner sets revenue goals and commitments and if they meet them, they receive up to a four per cent additional quarterly cash back and for our Influencer Incentive (offering), these partners also receive at least an extra two per cent commission on the deal that’s lost,” Farajun said.