Monday Morning Impact – November 23

ForeScout Launches Two-Tier Distribution Program

ForeScout Technologies has rolled out a partnership with Arrow Electronics and Westcon-Comstor Group North America, establishing a two-tier distribution program intended to help augment routes to market and solidify a solution-based approach to sales.

Program elements include marketing and sales support, pre- and post-sales training and certification that extends to integration with the offerings of allied companies such as FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, Splunk and Intel Security.

“In recent years, ForeScout has reached a magnitude of growth with our value added resellers that requires additional sales and support tools,” said Brian Gumbel, ForeScout’s vice president of Americas sales. “We believe that moving to a two-tier distribution model is key for technology vendors experiencing exponential growth.”

ForeScout’s solutions are intended to integrate with network, security, mobility and IT management products to overcome security silos, automate workflows and enable cost savings in the Global 2000 enterprise and government spaces.

Channel Impact
ForeScout has built much of its model around forging alliances of various types, many of which are focused on overseas markets. This distribution alliance is likely to help open doors in the Americas.

X-IO Rolls Out New Partner Program to Pursue Storage Market

X-IO Technologies, a Colorado Springs-based storage vendor, has announced the launch of its eXcellence Partner Program.

The new program forgoes the traditional tiered structure in favor of a more flattened structure and an emphasis on program simplicity.

“The channel is the growth engine for X-IO and the eXcellence Partner Program drives partner success by offering vastly-superior profitability through true sales enablement without any ‘fine print’,” said Diamond Lauffin, chief of channel strategy for X-IO. “We’ve differentiated every component of our program to make it easy for partners to quickly grow their businesses with storage solutions that offer significant technology advantages.”

Program features include a simplified partner registration process, deal registration, customized pricing model, sales and technical support, financial incentives, training, and a self-service partner portal.

Channel Impact
The company is capitalizing on its relatively compact size and channel presence to make simplicity a cornerstone of its go-to-market strategy. This will likely attract new entrants, but the successful expansion of its channel network will eventually necessitate the tiered structure that the company is currently able to avoid.

Thycotic Names VP, Channel Sales; Launches Deal Reg Program

Thycotic, which specializes in account management solutions, has named Bob Gagnon as the company’s new vice president of channel sales.

Gagnon has more than 20 years of experience in developing revenue streams across a variety of channel segments including distribution, retail, VAR, MSP, DMR and alliances. Prior to joining Thycotic, Bob served as North America vice president of channel sales for Unitrends. Previous roles also included VP of channels by AppAssure, which was acquired by Dell, and VP of sales for AVG Technologies.

For his first initiative as VP of channel sales, Gagnon and his team are launching a new deal registration program through which Thycotic partners can earn incentive payments of up to $250 for any registered deal that’s valued at $5,000 or greater.

“We see Thycotic Rewards as a major driver for the company’s continued growth,” said Gagnon. “By registering the opportunities with Thycotic, resellers can be assured that we will work with them on closing the deal, as well as maximizing their profit.”

Thycotic claims a customer base of more than 3,500 organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 enterprises.

Channel Impact
Experience often pays dividends. Gagnon is well known for his incentive programs.