Akamai Technologies partners are getting a new partner program that provides increased flexibility, support and financial incentives.

The Akamai Partner Program expands and supports Akamai Technologies partners’ ability to deliver high-value services to their customers. It builds upon the company’s existing channel partner program.

Akamai Technologies partners will migrate to the new program over a six-month transition period.

Fundamental Go-to-Market Shift

Micheal McCollough is Akamai’s global vice president of channels and alliances.

Akamai’s Micheal McCollough

“We are embarking on a path to fundamentally shift how we go to market by leading with our partners, and hence wanted to evolve our partner program to drive this strategy,” he said. “With today’s announcement, the partner is more in control of how the Akamai partner program works for them and will be rewarded for what they put into the partnership.”

Akamai partners can now choose to collaborate closely or work independently, McCollough said. In addition, they can address all stages of the customer lifecycle or focus on the areas where they specialize.

“The new Akamai partner program delivers on three key partner-first enhancements,” he said. “First, the redesigned program delivers more flexibility. With a wider scope of engagement options, partners have the choice to select the go-to-market motion that best fits their business model.”

Second, the program offers more more financial incentives, with a new pricing structure and lower wholesale rates, McCollough said. Partners now have a clearer, more predictable path to profitability and improved ROI.

And finally, it delivers partners “more edge,” McCollough said.

“With new enablement, training, certification and mentoring support, partners can get an edge in order to sell, integrate and service Akamai’s solutions,” he said.

2 Certification Levels

Akamai partners can now choose basic or advanced certification levels, with additional training options and pricing incentives for advanced partners. Role-based mentoring by Akamai gives advanced partners the know how to build a practice around Akamai solutions.

The new certification program aims to help partner organizations and professionals enhance their market recognition and competitive advantage.

Partners have had a strong interest to get service enabled, McCollough said. But they wanted the freedom to choose the product/solutions that best fits their business focus.

“We first built our enablement strategy, and related training and certification plan to address the partner needs,” he said. “And then [we] added the design of the new program on top of that. We shared this with key strategic partners during a partner advisory forum [at the] end of 2019, and then with a broader set of partners during a partner summit in [the second quarter of] 2020. Their feedback helped to fine tune and optimize our enablement offering and new partner program.”

“The new Akamai partner program unleashes our partners’ potential, enabling them to build highly rewarding businesses around our intelligent edge products, while delivering great value to their customers,” said Tom Leighton, Akamai’s co-founder and CEO.