Ruckus Dangles Volume, Healthcare Carrots For Top Partners
The program, which officially begins July 12 and will run through the end of 2010, will include annual rebates of between 2 and 5 percent, paid out quarterly, for partners who sell from $500,000 up to $2 million in Ruckus gear.
All Ruckus Top Dog partners are eligible. Top Dogs, which are Ruckus' elite, top-level partners, already receive 10 percent discounts on top of established Ruckus partner discounts, as well as dedicated MDF, lead generation, spiff programs and other incentives.
To be a Top Dog, Ruckus partners must have at least one "Ruckus champion" -- essentially an on-staff Ruckus evangelist -- as well as have three trained WiSE guy certified engineers and do $400,000 in annual Ruckus sales.
"We've been trying to do more for partners that invest in us and really reward them for their continued partnership," said John Sampson, Ruckus' director of global channel programs. "We've tried to keep it simple. The suggestion came from our partner community, and not only are we trying to reward those partners for their past performance, but also incent those partners that may be on the cusp of becoming Top Dog partners to get to the next level."
Ruckus earlier this month also rolled out a health care focused promotion called "Get Well," in which Ruckus partners can offer medical centers, clinics and other health care organizations a free Ruckus ZoneDirectory WLAN controller to go with that organization's Ruckus ZoneFlex WLAN deployment.
"We've done historically well in hospitality and education, and we're starting to see some momentum in health care," Sampson said. "We'd like to ratchet it up."
The promotion will run 12 months, according to Ruckus, and is limited to one free ZoneDirectory for each deployment.
The partner incentives continue a recent focus by Ruckus to bring its most loyal channel partners closer while continuing to grow sales and establish the WLAN vendor as an enterprise contender beyond its SMB roots.
Back in October, the company revamped its channel program to offer tiered partnership levels (Top Dog, Super Dog and Big Dog) and specialized training and marketing support.
According to Sampson, for the first half of 2010, the number of Ruckus partners expected to meet Top Dog requirements has increased 42 percent over last year.