Websense Strives for Partner Profitability
New program elements point to greater margins and protection for partners.
By Cecilia Galvinalvin
Web, email, and data security provider Websense Inc. recently announced new partner program enhancements and profitability initiatives, including a simplified margin structure. Erin Malone, the San Diego-based company’s senior director of channel sales, talks about the changes and what they mean for partners.
CHANNELPRO-SMB: What new profitability initiatives have you announced and why?
MALONE: Partners asked us to create a simple margin structure where all partners are at the same discount level before a deal is registered, and then to add more margin, depending on the partner’s tier, in our deal registration program. That gives partners more protection against others in the program if they bring us a new business deal. If they are the incumbent and have been servicing the account, we will give them greater protection. So we’ve flattened the structure on all tiers at 25 percent. Then, when a partner registers an opportunity, the margin increases.
CHANNELPRO-SMB: Is renewal migration part of the program?
MALONE: Yes. If you renew the customer on the same products they had, there is some protection provided through renewal registration, but there’s even greater protection if you can take that existing renewal and migrate the customer to our latest product offerings or Web Security Gateway and v10000 appliance. The increase in margin would be almost 10 percent.
CHANNELPRO-SMB: What is the new federal program?
MALONE: We created a federal executive and a federal associate program, where before we just had a commercial program. We did this to reward partners who are committed to the federal space, but wanted to provide opportunity to all partners to qualify for it [by selling into the space], although there are still requirements that must be met to get to the highest program level.
CHANNELPRO-SMB: What else have you announced?
MALONE: We’ve created a preferred vendor program. Websense has established relationships with certain vendors that provide turnkey solutions for our partners. We understand that some partners may not have the resources to create a professional newsletter, for example, so they can work with a select vendor [to create one]. The newsletter would use Websense and industry content, plus use the partner’s brand and services, and marry them together to execute a newsletter. That’s just one example of the type of company in the program; telemarketing services is another.
