Talend Launches European VAR Program, Preps For North America Initiative

Data integration and management software developer Talend is launching a European VAR program and has plans to assemble a similar initiative in North America by next year.

Talend is counting on the program to expand sales to new customers, both by putting more "feet on the street" through the channel and by introducing Talend's software to solution providers' customers.

"We look at this as a key expansion strategy for us globally," said Ashley Stirrup, Talend's chief marketing officer, in an interview with CRN. "Until now our sales model has been primarily direct." Ultimately the channel could account for between 20 and 30 percent of Talend's business, Stirrup said.

[Related: Talend 5.6 Takes World By Storm in New Big Data Software Release]

Talend develops data integration, application integration, data quality and master data management software, among other middleware products. The company supplies the core products as open-source software -- there have been more than 2 million downloads of its products so far -- and generates revenue by selling commercial licenses.

Last month the company said sales of big data integration products grew 122 percent in 2014 while master data management software sales surged 86 percent.

Talend was founded in Paris and it is well established in Europe, hence the initial focus on a VAR program there. The vendor will particularly concentrate on channel sales in France, Germany and the U.K., Stirrup said.

NEXT: Talend's U.S. Partner Program On Tap

Talend's headquarters is now in Redwood City, Calif., and the company will eventually leverage the channel expertise it gains in Europe to launch a similar program in the U.S., possibly late this year, Stirrup said, but more likely in 2016.

Francois Mero, senior vice president of sales, EMEA, will manage the European channel program.

The program will offer Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond tiers of discounts and benefits based on partner sales goals and the level of partner investment in their Talend-related business, according to Stirrup. Partners will be offered training, support, marketing tools and co-marketing campaigns, with all benefits and content available through a partner portal.

Talend has previously worked with a dozen or so partners in Europe, including Datalytyx in London and Micropole in Paris. Other partners include systems integrators and technical consultants, including companies that work in the Hadoop big data platform space.

Current partners will be brought into the new program, Stirrup said, and Talend will add a few more to bring the number up to about 20 to start.

"We think this is a tremendous opportunity for them," he said. "So far we're getting great initial feedback from the partners."

NEXT: Talend Partner Datalytyx On Company's Technology

Solution provider Datalytyx and its predecessor company Managed Service Solutions (which merged in October with Dynamyx Ltd.) have worked with Talend for several years, leveraging the vendor's data integration technology to provide performance management and business performance management services.

"We need to do a lot of data manipulation and turn it into trusted data," said Datalytyx director and co-founder Justin Mullen in an interview about the company's work with Talend's technology.

Mullen's company became an early Talend reseller because it saw an opportunity to offer customers a complete turnkey system of technology and services -- including selling customers the software license. Before launching the partner program Talend, while providing some partners with finders' fees, didn't provide a license reseller mechanism.

Mullen especially praised the effort Talend has put into coordinating sales efforts between partners and its own sales force, compensating sales representatives for channel sales to avoid conflict. "That's a sign of a mature, well-thought-through channel program."

PUBLISHED MARCH 5, 2015