SailPoint Redesigns Partner Program To Drive Identity Security Services

In the biggest revamp to the vendor’s channel program since it debuted in 2015, the company is aiming to help partners capture growing services opportunities.

SailPoint Channel Chief David Schwartz

SailPoint, a widely used provider of identity security tools, announced Wednesday it has overhauled its channel program with an eye toward helping partners capture the fast-growing services opportunities in the space.

The launch of the new SailPoint Partner Fleet program marks the largest revamp of the vendor’s channel program since it debuted in 2015, the company said.

[Related: Wanted: Solution Providers Who Know Identity Security]

David Schwartz, global head of partners at SailPoint, told CRN that a core theme of the new program is around doing more to enable channel partners on services related to the company’s identity security products.

For example, SailPoint has been enjoying “huge growth” on delivery services with partners, while other major partner opportunities include advisory services and managed services, Schwartz said.

Major updates with the introduction of the SailPoint Partner Fleet program includes the integration of the company’s prior delivery partner and reseller partner offerings. “The new program’s intent is to be able to bring, under a single umbrella, a partner program that allows our partners to choose where they can add value,” Schwartz said.

Above all, “delivering services is our first pillar” in the SailPoint partner program, he said. The other “pillars” cover partners who focus on transactional deals, such as resellers, and partners who offer advisory services, according to Schwartz.

“The most important partners for us can actually drive value in multiple of these pillars,” he said.

Previously, SailPoint’s program for services partners was essentially a training and enablement platform, which would allow them to get certified on delivery services, Schwartz said.

The new program will include greater recognition and rewards for delivery services partners, including “making sure that we’re able to bring the top certified partners into more and more opportunities,” he said.

Partners that are seeking to earn the “delivery admiral” badge with SailPoint will now be able to do so on a quarterly basis, rather than an annual basis as in the past, Schwartz said.

SailPoint also launched a new badge for managed services partners, he said. There’s a “huge growth opportunity” right now for providing managed services to SailPoint customers who own their license to the technology, Schwartz said.

When it comes managed services opportunities, “we’re building [enablement] into our program,” he said. Ultimately, “the more partners I speak to globally, it’s clear this has become a much bigger and much more important part of their business on a go-forward basis.”

Partner Perspective

Optiv, No. 25 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500, has been partnering with SailPoint for more than a decade, and provides the “full gamut” of solutions and services capabilities around the technology, said Alan Mayer, senior vice president of partners and Alliances at Optiv.

“That allows us to be able to really align with the intent of this program,” Mayer told CRN.

When it comes to services, in particular, the way the SailPoint partner program has evolved “ties in well” with the services opportunities that Optiv is seeing, he said.

“We have a very robust identity practice,” Mayer said, ranging from “design and advisory to deployment to management, and the full suite of capabilities that our clients would require.”

‘Long Journey Ahead’

Opportunities for solutions and services providers in the identity security space are surging as customers increasingly recognize the complexity of their identity issues, SailPoint Founder and CEO Mark McClain said in a recent interview with CRN.

“Identity is not a project, it’s a program. This isn’t something you finish and then you’re done,” McClain said in a recent interview with CRN. “You’re just going to continue to make progress and add and deepen.”

In that scenario, partners “have a long journey ahead with that customer that’s pretty lucrative,” he said. “You’re going to do a lot of work for a long time.”