German-based network monitoring software vendor, Paessler AG, wants to establish a larger presence in the North American market, and so it has announced a new channel program that rewards partners using a combined points and discount system.
Ken Sanofsky, general manager of North America, at Paessler, was hired last year to help the Nuremberg, Germany based company establish a larger presence in the U.S. and Canada.
Currently, Sanofsky says the company has more than 150,000 customers around the world, with about 40 per cent of its overall business coming from North America. The company conducts roughly 40 per cent of its business through channel partners and the rest is direct.
The company has about 50 channel partners to date in North America and Sanofsky says he hopes to increase this to at least 200 reseller and MSP partners within the next 12 to 18 months. Canada will also be a priority for Sanofsky, who says that expanding the Canadian market with help from partners is “important to Paessler.”
“We’re looking for resellers and MSPs who sell network gear of any type, whether it’s in VoIP or general networking equipment,” he said. “We’re also interested in any partner who manages customer networks.”
To help attract new partners, Paessler announced a new partner program last month that rewards the channel when they promote the company’s PRTG Network Monitor product. The PRTG Network Monitor product is ready-to-use out of the box solution that provides businesses with visibility into the network.
“Our product helps customers understand where the bottlenecks are in their network and it also generates reports and real-time alerts so IT managers are notified of any potential problems on the network before they actually happen,” Sanofsky said.
As part of the program, partners earn points to obtain preferred status levels (there are four) and they can also earn progressively higher discounts towards the company’s products. Partners are rewarded points based on things such as sales volume and through their marketing initiatives and performance, Sanofsky explained.
The status levels in the partner program include standard, premium, gold and platinum. Partners are rewarded with discounts retroactively in the form of a reimbursement, which is based upon a partner’s total sales volume and the highest status level they achieved at the end of each calendar year.
In addition to discounts on products, the Paessler channel program also offers partners access to marketing material and technical and sales training.
