Veracode Revamps Partner Program With Goal Of Interacting ‘Better With The Channel’

Veracode CRO Pete Harteveld says the company’s sales history was ‘very much’ tilted toward direct sales when he came on board 18 months ago and it ultimately was restricting the company’s growth. ‘It was clear to me we needed to do better,’ he tells CRN.

Veracode, an application security testing vendor, is trying to ramp up revenue by focusing more on its channel business and less on direct sales.

Burlington, Mass.-based Veracode, which earlier this year received a major investment from TA Associates that valued the company at $2.5 billion, Tuesday unveiled a completely revamped channel program—the Veracode Velocity Partner Program.

In an interview with CRN, Pete Harteveld, CRO of 700-employee Veracode, said the company’s sales history was “very much” tilted toward direct sales when he first joined Veracode about 18 months ago.

But Harteveld said the over-reliance on direct sales ultimately was restricting the company’s growth. “It was clear to me we needed to do better,” he said.

Since he arrived at the company, Harteveld, who previously led worldwide sales and business development at Compuware, said Veracode has nearly doubled its channel team to 16 employees.

Hartevald, who is effectively acting as the company’s channel chief in addition to his other duties, said Veracode will work with both big and small channel partners. But it is hoping to establish close relationships with channel players that have regional or territorial clout with customers, he added.

“We’re not trying to be exclusive,” said Harteveld. “But we’re also not trying to be out there trying to get 1,000 partners.”

The company wouldn’t disclose what percentage of its revenue currently comes from the channel.

But David Grazio, senior director of partner marketing at Veracode, said the company has “seen 70 percent growth [year over year] in partner-initiated deals” so far this fiscal year.

‘A Driving Need’ For Better Channel Strategy

Grazio, who joined Veracode about a year ago after years working in channel sales for various technology vendors, said Veracode was ripe for change in terms of how it generated sales.

“There was definitely a driving need” for a better channel strategy, Grazio said in an interview with CRN.

Harteveld agreed that Veracode’s relationship with the channel had to change if the company was serious about boosting its revenues.

“We needed to improve the way we [interacted] with the channel,” he said.

To that end, the new Veracode Velocity Partner Program is designed to let partners grow their security practice more quickly and profitably around Veracode’s cloud-native Continuous Software Security Platform, according to the company.

New Features To Program

Features include new demand generation campaigns aligned to security initiatives and a new role-based partner training and certification program.

In effect, the company is creating three partner tiers, up from two tiers, that will provide varying degrees and types of services available to channel partners, depending on their wants and needs, the company said.

Veracode also has redesigned its partner portal.

Mandy Wierzba, vendor relations manager at AE Business Solutions, a VAR based in Madison, Wis., said she’s impressed with the new portal.

“It’s very, very user-friendly,” she said, noting the site has received positive reviews from her company’s sales personnel. “It’s easy to use.”