Offers a Simple, Predictable and Profitable Program to Channel Community
MARKHAM, ON – May 3, 2010 – McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE) today announced the worldwide availability of its new channel program which was previewed in January at the company’s annual Sales Kick Off event. The McAfee program is based on the commitment to providing a consistent world-class channel program that promotes a value-based, enabled, productive and profitable channel ecosystem.
McAfee has undertaken a listen, learn and deliver philosophy. The ideas for the program enhancements have come from the partners themselves. The program enhancements are categorized into three main areas: Margin Advantage programs, Enablement Advantage programs, and the final stage of Secure Computing partner program integration.
“The launch of the enhanced McAfee channel program represents our ongoing approach of listening to partner feedback and rewarding partners for the investment they make in McAfee,” said Alex Thurber, senior vice president of worldwide channels at McAfee. “We’ve modified the McAfee SecurityAlliance partner program to ensure we deliver a fully enabled and profitable channel and make it easier for our partners to do business with McAfee.”
Margin Advantage – A number of sales incentive programs that allow partners to predictably and consistently earn increased margin for specific value-add activities. These rich incentives reward partners’ investment in accredited sales and technical resources and make it easier for partners to differentiate themselves from competing partner organizations. The Margin Advantage program is categorized into three focus areas:
- Margin Building programs – which give partners a combination of margin enhancement programs such as deal registration, tiered pricing and teaming plans to maximize their front-end margin;
- Business Building programs – which include a Market Development Fund (MDF) program that drives pipeline opportunities through relationship building and demand generation activities; and
- Profit Building programs – which include a variety of specific incentive programs to benefit partners as well as their sales representatives and sales engineers.
McAfee has introduced two new Margin Advantage programs in the Americas: Deal Protection and Incumbency Advantage. The McAfee Deal Protection policy states that if an opportunity has been approved as a deal registration or if an approved applicable teaming plan is in place with a McAfee partner, quote exceptions or special pricing will only be offered to the original McAfee partner. In effect, this offers Deal Protection for the authorized partner for this target opportunity. Similarly, Incumbency Advantage provides a registration option that will provide additional margin to the reseller that closed the original business.
Enablement Advantage – A key area of investment is partner enablement. McAfee plans on increasing its channel resources in the field with new Channel Technical Enablement Engineers who will focus on helping partners become technically enabled. Additionally, they will provide expanded technical pre-sales content to include solution sizing, demonstration capabilities and technical positioning.
McAfee is also launching a new enablement program called Ready, Set, Sell. This role-based enablement methodology takes a three phased approach to partner training that can be treated as a checklist to guide partners throughout the McAfee(R) SecurityAlliance Partner Program, training and enablement activities.
Additionally, through the newly launched McAfee ACE Partner Readiness Program, McAfee provides recognition and rewards for partner sales and technical professionals who have achieved the highest levels of certification within a specific Solution Competency.
Final Integration of Secure Computing – Upon the acquisition of Secure Computing one year ago, McAfee announced a phased approach to integration. With the launch of the new McAfee SecurityAlliance Partner Program, the final stage of the Secure Computing partner integration is complete. All partners in good standing from Secure Computing have been integrated into the McAfee partner program.
Partner Accolades:
A March 2010 IPED Research Study reported that 85.7% of North American partners surveyed are satisfied with the overall McAfee incentive program.
“One of my favorite things about being a McAfee partner is the partner program,” said Nate Wilke, security strategy specialist at Dataway. “McAfee has one of the most aggressive partner programs out there and rewards its partners handsomely. I have really enjoyed the fact that they’ve integrated Secure Computing so quickly and made it easy on the partner. They’ve also been able to roll a lot of the products into McAfee ePolicyOrchestrator, which has been very valuable to our customers.”
“The comprehensive security solutions from McAfee fit into the business model of our SMB and enterprise customers,” said Andrew Lebus, business development manager, AppSec Consulting. “We’ve sold McAfee products to meet customer compliance requirements for over five years and they are ecstatic about the solutions. The support from our channel reps and product management team are a big part of our past and continual success.”
“We’re very pleased with the new McAfee SecurityAlliance program,” said Andy Welsh, director of Partner Alliances at Accuvant. “Accuvant’s partnership with McAfee has been further strengthened by the willingness of McAfee to proactively analyze how the partnership can be improved to be mutually beneficial.”
For more information about the McAfee SecurityAlliance visit
http://www.mcafee.com/us/partners/global_securityalliance/index.html
