Symantec Wants Partners To Focus On Products

Symantec's Global Sales Expert Training Program brings together six legacy sales training programs and blends the different philosophies of Veritas and Symantec with regard to training, said Julie Parrish, vice president of global channel sales and strategy at Symantec, Cupertino, Calif.

While the legacy programs focused on training partners to sell solutions, the new program signals Symantec's intention to move to product based training, Parrish noted. "We're training our partners on how to price and position all of the key point products we have. We've separated solutions training because we think that's more of a marketing task," said Parrish.

Symantec today is releasing five new sales training modules and assessments for specific point products that partners can access through the vendor's PartnerNet portal, and plans to release an additional 13 in the next few weeks, Parrish said. Partners who take the training and pass the vendor's assessment will be recognized as a Symantec Security Expert (SSE) in that particular product, she added.

Symantec has simplified the new training modules to reduce the time needed to complete them, which is another reflection of the shift to focusing on point products, Parrish said. "We've shortened them down to about an hour per module, in consideration of how our partners do business," she said, adding that partners can browse sales enablement toolkits and Web based whitepapers to augment their field experience.

Doug Thompson, vice president of strategic alliances at MSI Systems Integrators, says the new program offers partners an opportunity to demonstrate their expertise in Symantec products. "The new program differentiates itself from a certification program on the technical side. This is an opportunity for a sales representative to put an icon on a card that shows expertise in a technical skill set, which is a competitive advantage," said Thompson.

The focus on product based training shows that Symantec is taking into account the fact that each of their partners is architecturally different, according to Thompson. "Instead of having to go in and train toward a solution, now we can be product specific," he said.

Symantec is also beefing up its Partner Locator, an English language version of which launched in March, to include support for 18 different languages, Parrish said. While the initial launch was available only to Symantec's Platinum and Gold partners, the revamped version will be available to Silver partners as well, Parrish said.

In the Fall, Symantec plans to introduce advanced search functionality to the portal to allow partners to find other partners in specific geographic regions with expertise in Symantec products. For example, a partner would be able to locate a partner with a background in finance and regulatory compliance who has experience selling Symantec's Enterprise Vault product, Parrish said.