Cohesity Revs Up Partner Program, Offers New Tier Structure

Cohesity on Tuesday introduced a new tiered partner program, one that’s enhanced and designed to increase transparency, accessibility to enablement and rewards, and to simplify being a Cohesity partner. The vendor initially launched its partner program a year ago.

The company announced the updated partner program one month after Bill Lipsin joined the company as global vice president, channels, taking the reins from Todd Palmer, former vice president, worldwide channels at Cohesity. Lipsin was hired to steer Cohesity toward reaching the next level in its growth.

Cohesity’s Bill Lipsin

“I had a running start. I was consulting with Cohesity before taking on the role of leading global channel sales. In working with the company, I realized they have something really special — Cohesity is disrupting the data management space in a way no other vendor can match. With this in mind, I worked on enhancing the program, and once I was on board, continued working with the team to finalize key additions to the program,” Lipsin told Channel Futures.

Many of the new changes were in process before Lipsin joined Cohesity, he admitted.

“The team previewed the planned enhancements with me while I was consulting and I agreed that this is absolutely the right direction for Cohesity. I like the easy-to-understand program structure and our focus on delivering a strong partner experience. We already have world-class partners, and we are now ensuring our program will help take their success to the next level,” he said.

Cohesity is banking on partners finding the new partner program more streamlined for incentives and MDF management, and with bigger bonuses for bringing in new customers. The vendor also is trying to help partners see their differentiation.

Beginning with the new tier structure – associate, preferred and premier – the objective is to clarify for partners what they need to do to succeed and grow with Cohesity.

Associate partners get access to the Cohesity partner portal, where they can access prebuilt marketing campaign kits, access sales tools, and gain access to web-based sales and enablement training.

Moving up a tier, preferred partners complete specific trainings and get access to Cohesity partner teams, MDF for marketing and enablement, along with instructor-led training courses and not-for-resale (NFR) software for customer demos and education.

At the top tier, premier partners have an opportunity to work directly with Cohesity executives on joint business planning and custom growth programs. Premier partners can provide feedback to Cohesity through the Partner Advisory Council, among other avenues for communication. To reach the premier partner tier, partners must surpass specific goals and complete training certifications and accreditations.

New customer acquisition is a top priority for Cohesity. The company has introduced new incentives for partners that bring in first-time customers. Partner sales teams in the preferred and premier tiers in North America are eligible for bonuses between $5,000 and $50,000 for every new customer they sign. Bonuses are determined by the initial deal size. Follow-on purchases are also eligible for bonuses.

In addition, Cohesity has launched a new tool to streamline MDF management for partners. The MDF tool, integrated into the partner portal, provides automated processes so that partners can easily request, manage and submit claims for driving business growth, and dedicated, around-the-clock help desk assistance.