Citrix Aims For Midmarket with New Partner Incentives, Reward Structure

Citrix (CTXS) is continuing its push to capture a greater share of the midmarket with the launch of new incentive and reward programs designed to boost partner profit.

The features are split between incentives for identifying new sales opportunities in the midmarket and rewards for actual sales within the midmarket. Citrix Channel Chief Kimberly Martin said the company is focusing heavily on growing its already sizeable $6 billion share in the midmarket space to match the success of its enterprise business.

Key among the updates announced is an overhaul of Citrix’s market development funds (MDF). Beginning this summer, Citrix will no longer offer individual MDF for partners, but will instead focus on providing CSAs and distributors with Strategic Development funds. Martin said the change is a direct result of studies, which failed to show any correlation between the success of partners receiving marketing development funds, and those who weren’t.

“What we’re moving to is proposal-based [funds] so we can do bigger things with our partners and we can help support them,” she said. “A lot of our partners don’t have marketing departments, and we can specifically help them target the midmarket through things like social media campaigns or digital marketing.”

Martin also detailed the impending launch of the Net New Partner Sourced program, which will provide Citrix’s CSA, ISV and SI partners with rewards for identifying new midmarket opportunities. The program will feature a suggested seven percent upfront discount on al new partner-qualified opportunities in addition to all of Citrix’s existing discounts. Together, that means partners will be eligible to receive up to 10 percent in incentive payouts, according to the announcement.

Martin said Citrix has also updated the Citrix Advisor Rewards program (CAR) to increase the predictability of SLAs for resellers. Partners had previously complained that Citrix was too slow to tell resellers when or if they had qualified for rewards through the program, so now Citrix is working with its internal sales team to guarantee a response within 5-7 business days.

“We’re confident that these changes are going to help grow our opportunity pipeline, specifically the midmarket,” said Martin. “It’s going to increase our partner leverage and more important it’s going to help our partners profitability in the midmarket and being more successful in the Citrix solution stack.”

Citrix expects to launch its Strategic Development Funds in July for partners in the Americas and EMEA, with a rollout for APAC intended for later in the year. The Net New Partner Sourced Program is expected to debut on May 9 globally.

The new program features come on the heels of several other program enhancements announced during the Citrix Summit 2016 in January, where the company announced changes to its Partner Account Manager (PAM) rule as well as the introduction of a midmarket success kit for partners.