Monday Morning Impact – March 6

Gartner: Sales Enablement Budgets to Increase by 50% by 2027

Sales enablement budgets will increase by 50% within the next five years as a way to address shifting buyer preferences, boost seller effectiveness, and drive revenue growth, according to Gartner, Inc.

“Sales enablement is the most critical function for navigating sales teams through the constant change that surrounds them, from economic headwinds to evolving seller roles,” said Shayne Jackson, Sr Director Analyst in the Gartner for Sales Leaders Practice. “However, budget increases will bring heightened expectations of sales enablement results. The onus is on chief sales officers (CSOs) to prioritize demonstrating its ROI, particularly when faced with ongoing macroeconomic pressures.”

Gartner recommends that enablement leaders support the changing role of sellers by redesigning tools to create collaborative resources that sellers and customers can use together; optimize workflow for sellers by focusing on drag reduction to improve quota attainment, engagement, and retention; updating talent profiles to emphasize digital engagements; and by aligning training to seller learning habits.

To effectively demonstrate sales enablement ROI, Gartner recommends that CSOs consult with sales leaders on behaviors needed to hit their goals; adding enablement activities, such as coaching, training and creating tools, to achieve the desired behaviors; comparing changed sales behaviors and enablement activity to the baseline; and by building a compelling narrative of the behavior change driven by enablement that ties back to the sales goals.

Gartner clients can read more in “The Right Way to Measure the Impact of Sales Enablement” and “Leadership Vision for 2023: Sales Enablement.”

Channel Impact^®
Properly executed enablement will enhance revenues while aligning deliverables to ensure consistency among all roles that interact with customers.

Proofpoint Unveils New Partner Program Aimed at Simplicity

Proofpoint, Inc., a Sunnyvale, California-based cybersecurity, and compliance company, has rolled out its new “Proofpoint Element Partner Program” intended to reduce the complexity of programs that service a mix of managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), distributors, and value-added resellers (VARs).

The program is built on a structure of two tiers, as opposed to three or more. All channel partners – whether MSPs, MSSPs, or VARs – start at the Core tier. Corresponding partners have access to deal registration, sales certifications, technical training, and rewards.

Having reached higher revenue goals and having invested in specific sales and technical training, Elite partners receive enhanced deal registration discounts, a dedicated Channel Account Manager, and priority in available marketing fund allocation. They may also benefit from a Value Incentive Rebate based on revenue growth commitments signed on a joint yearly business plan.

Partners can also specialize in Information Protection — with product focus areas such as CASB, Endpoint DLP or Insider Threat Management — or Proofpoint Security Awareness training.

“We built Proofpoint Element from the ground up based on extensive feedback from our channel partners,” said Joe Sykora, senior vice president, global channel, and partner sales, Proofpoint. “Far too many partner programs are bogged down by unnecessary complexity, and that’s why we’re excited to bring a simplified, modern, and clear-to-understand program that adds true partner value.”

Channel Impact^®
The new program is intended to strengthen partners’ position and market opportunity with enhanced sales and marketing development resources, benefits, incentives, and training support while reducing operational complexity.

WEKA Launches New Global Channel Partner Program

WEKA, a Campbell, California-based data platform provider for performance-intensive workloads, has announced the launch of its new global channel partner program, “WEKA X.” The new program gives value-added resellers (VARs), system integrators (SIs), and managed service providers (MSPs) a toolkit of training, certifications, exclusive pricing, and deal registration incentives to support the company’s AI, ML, and HPC offerings.

“The market has reached an inflection point,” said Jonathan Martin, president at WEKA. “Organizations want to use next-generation technologies like AI and ML to solve previously insurmountable challenges and achieve critical breakthroughs in research and discovery. They quickly realize their legacy data architectures are holding them back. “This is driving a complete rethink and replacement of the enterprise data stack as we know it, presenting a significant opportunity for the channel.”

The program offers three partner tiers – Pro, Prime, and Premier – aligned to annual revenue generated with WEKA. Other benefits include accelerated deal registration, a variety of procurement options, and also training, certification and enablement tools. Premier Partners get exclusive benefits, including a dedicated partner success team, marketing, and demand-gen support.

“The WEKA Data Platform delivers the next-generation approach they and their customers need to transition from traditional data silos to streaming data pipeline architectures and fully capitalize on AI, ML, and HPC,” said Jeff Echols, vice president of channel and strategic partnerships at WEKA. “The WEKA X Partner Program provides accelerated deal registration, tools, resources, support, and the exclusive benefits they need to optimize for profitability and success.”

Channel Impact^®
Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), high-performance computing (HPC), and other performance-intensive workloads are requiring accelerated network performance, and prioritizing how organizations store, manage, process, and analyze their data. This trend presents a huge opportunity for the full range of indirect channel partners.