“Specializations have opened up new business avenues and opportunities for partners”

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">Why
did href="http://www.dqweek.com/Symantecs-market-vision-on-anti-virus">Symantec
see a need to initiate a program like Symantec Enhanced
Partner Program?

The IT
landscape is undergoing multiple changes. Large enterprises and SMBs
are facing stringent budget cuts, yet cannot do away with
implementing the right technology to address key business challenges.
Customers continue to make it clear that we need to be able to
deliver consulting services around our products.

Today,
partners need to be both solution and market specialists, rather than
being tech nology generalists for their customers. It is important
that they focus on delivering value-added services to their customers
and no longer be just sellers. Customers are increasingly looking up
to them as their IT experts for upcoming solutions and market
knowledge for the same. In order to deliver consulting services
around our products and create more scalable consulting business to
meet our customers continually evolving needs, Symantec aims at
creating greater opportunities for specialized partners to succeed in
the market. It is with this vision that the Enhanced Symantec Partner
Program has been rolled out. Based on a specialist model, it rewards
partner investments for competencies in solution or market seg ment
specializations. It is designed to help partners build competitive
advantage over others in the market, thereby improving recognition
and increasing their profitability. These enhancements reflect and
encourage a partner- ed approach in some of Symantec's most
important markets.

Specializations
are
the recognition by Symantec of partner knowledge and exper tise
in a solution area or market that is impor tant to both our partners,
customers and Symantec. Specializations document, that a partner has
achieved accreditations and met other requirements, demonstrating
that they have the skills and experience to deliver a positive
customer experience from solution identification through deployment,
configuration and support.

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">Does
this program allow partners to specialize in a domain considering
they would not be able to offer all services from Symantec?

A partner
would acquire specializations depen ding on the partner's focus and
investment. Symantec has a very broad portfolio spanning security,
storage and systems management, so the notion of specializations is
to help partners focus on those areas of competency that best match
the partner's area of focus. Some partners who already have a broad
set of competencies could leverage on multiple specializations. Other
partners with more of a niche focus could focus on just one
specialization. Either way, Symantec rewards partners based on the
program framework.

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">What
has been the response so far from your partners?

We have
seen an encouraging response from our partners in India. We are
seeing some of our key partners investing their time and efforts
towards getting the training and enabling their team to be more
productive and effective on the field. Additionally, they do feel
that the specializations have opened up new business avenues and
opportunities. This is one of the key aims of our Partner Program and
we are sure that our Indian partners will find it beneficial across
multiple aspects.

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">What
are the key specialization levels this program has?

The
Enhanced Symantec Partner Program is based on a 'specialist'
model, rewarding partner investments for competencies in solution or
market segment specializations. Specializations and revenue will be
required to attain Silver, Gold and Platinum levels within the
Symantec Partner Program. Symantec offers two groups of specializa
tions: Solution Specializations and Market Segment Specialization.

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">Solution
Specializations:

• Enterprise

  Security

• Data

  Protection

• Endpoint

  Management

• Storage

  Management

• Data

  Loss Prevention

• High

  Availability

• IT
  Compliance

• Archiving

  and eDiscovery

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">Market
Segment Specialization:

• Small

  and Midsize Business

Then we
have the Master Specializations which are aligned with Solution
Specializations, and are available to solution specialists who
maintain an active consulting practice in the specialization and meet
other requirements. Master Specializations are available in the
following 5 solution areas: Enterprise security, data loss
prevention, IT compliance, data protection, archiving and
e-discovery, endpoint management, storage management, and high
availability.

style="font-size: 15pt;" size="4">

What
is your near short run expectation from your partners?

The
continuous development of new technologies and an evolving cyber
threat landscape presents unique challenges to customers in their
business operations. In the absence of a dedicated IT team, and in
the wake of emerging enterprise technologies like cloud computing,
virtualization etc, the customers require expert advice from partners
about the right solutions and technologies to be deployed. We expect
our partners to make the most of the Enhanced Symantec Partner
Program and other learning opportunities that Symantec brings out for
them at regular intervals which helps them to be a trusted partner of
the customers. Today, a channel partner is expected to be the trusted
expert on whom the customers will rely on completely for all their IT
needs.