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Network performance and diagnostics firm Savvius has launched its new global PartnerOne program with a focus on relevant margins and customer growth opportunities.

Savvius’ Patrick Johnston

Members of the program have access to the full range of Savvius networking offerings for monitoring, performance management, troubleshooting and forensic investigations. It also provides access to a network of Savvius Technology Alliance Partners (STAP), including such vendors as Cisco, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Extreme Networks.

Patrick Johnston, Savvius’ vice president of worldwide sales, tells Channel Partners the PartnerOne program was needed because the company’s direct sales model can’t scale.

“From a sales perspective, we needed to look to a channel model so that we could leverage our existing relationships with technology companies like Gigamon, Garland and Big Switch,” he said. “We already have over 6,000 customers around the world, but as the need for expertise expands into mid-enterprise and SMBs, and even into the cloud at the branch level, there was no way that we could address the sales need effectively without tapping VARs, resellers and system integrators who could put those solutions together. We’re always looking for new technology partners to deliver that.”

PartnerOne offers sales tools to accelerate the sales cycle, a front-end deal registration program to increase margins, and on-premises sales training along with online technical training. STAP use-cases and offerings allow PartnerOne partners to add real time visibility and forensic capabilities for security, network analytics, and decreasing mean-time-to-resolution to their current offerings, it said.

“Simplicity is key,” Johnston said. “We wanted to make it two-tiered because we want to look for select partners in a particular vertical or a particular region. There’s deal registration for our gold partners. We have a website and a portal with our high-touch sales model. We are also moving some of our marketing funds away from our trade shows.”

This year, Savvius will be investing in marketing development funds (MDF) for its new gold partners, he said. This is in preparation for rolling out a traditional MDF program next year that gold partners will have access to based on results, he said.

“We’ve done around a third of our sales through the channel (historically), and we want to grow that with marketing programs with technology partners, etc.,” Johnston said. “We’re in a recruit mode right now looking for specific partners in certain verticals and geographical areas. We’re probably going to bring on 10-12 partners each quarter. Partner recruitment and training, with tailored training programs, is my No. 1 focus.”