With SMBs increasingly lacking the in-house resources to deal with advances in IT technology, Netgear recently launched its Drive Partner Success Program to help VARs and MSPs to bring value-added services to this segment of the economy.
For many SMBs, advancements in technology bring benefits, but also challenges, especially with the advent of AI. While businesses may look to take advantage of the efficiencies they bring, often they lack the in-house technical expertise to do it effectively. This is why many outsource IT to resellers and managed service providers (MSPs). But those providers need support too, and Netgear’s newly launched Drive Partner Success Program is designed to do just that.
“For SMB end customers, there’s a limited IT capacity, whether that’s a resource challenge or technical ability for them to manage their in-house networks,” says Jordan Hobday, channel lead at Netgear. “For instance, we often see a lot of legacy networks, which limits the growth of these businesses. But there’s ever more devices in businesses today, and, of course, AI is the hot topic right now. That is all bandwidth that’s needed within the network and legacy networks often can’t handle this, and neither can the in-house team.”
Allied to that is a lack of budget, Jordan adds. “We’re seeing budgets being spent more cautiously these days and they have got to cover a wide range of devices,” he says. “It’s important that the end customer feels they have a right product for the right fit and the right budget.”
This is the space that Netgear is targeting. “We often see over-engineered and over-complex solutions, which IT departments in-house struggle to deploy and manage,” he says. “They often have features that these end customers just do not need. Coupled with that, these over-engineered and bloated networks are often expensive and not budget friendly.
“Then we have the other side, the risky solutions. There are vendors out there – and, of course, cost-pays a huge part in this – that come with less reliable solutions and insufficient support. And, of course, for our partners, there’s the lower margin. So Netgear fits nicely here. We have an enterprise-grade product, made with enterprise-grade components within our products.
“We offer simple deployment of a world class product at a price point that is achievable and attainable for a lot of partners and customers.”
Drive for success
This move into the SMB space is part of Netgear’s new leadership’s plan to grow the business. “We have huge experience that has come in from the IT and AV enterprise world, all the way from CEO to general manager and sales,” says Jordan. “We have real leadership that’s driving this change within the business. We’re focused on building partner relationships. We want to go to our partners and bring them new revenue streams to add to their business. We want to grow with our partners.
“We have heavy investments in software products and technology, which is important to ensure we’re still delivering excellence to our customers from a products and software perspective. We’ve proven performance in the AV over IP space.
“Now, we also have the Netgear Drive Partner Success Program. We want partners to have success when they use our products. We want the partners’ success to come first, and we want to make partnering with Netgear easy, so we have made it simple to understand the program.
“Of course, we want it to be rewarding too, and we want our partners to have good profit margins when they’re working with Netgear. The key thing is we want our partners to stand out with the services the customers value the most and provide differentiation for them; this is about what excellence our partners can deliver to customers.”
Jordan adds that the core values of the programme are built around competitive differentiation. “It is about what our partners offer to end customers, not how much revenue they spend with Netgear, because revenue doesn’t matter to an end customer. The end customer wants to understand, ‘what are you going to deliver for me? Are you going to manage me and give me a good experience? Are there professional services?’ We want it to be simple to understand and easy to do business.
“Integrity is a huge part as well: we want to be that trusted advisor to our partners.”
Tiered approach
There are three tiers in the programme, Jordan adds. “We have Netgear Drive Ignite Partner, which is our entry-level partnering tier, ideal for new and growing partners. Partners have portal access, access to training, collateral and demo gear. It’s a simple level to obtain.”
The second level, Netgear Drive Apex Partner, is aimed at value-added resellers and AV system integrators that specialise in design and implementation services. This offers VIP incentives, MDF opportunities and direct access to Netgear support. “With APEX there is MDF eligibility, because we believe that MDF is, if managed and executed well, a game changer to drive Netgear and our partners’ business forward,” says Jordan.
Finally, there is Netgear Drive Apex-MSP Partner, which is tailored for those with managed service offerings. Here, partners can access discounted, partner-led support packages and enjoy the highest level of program benefits and savings. “Apex-MSP offers partner led support SKUs at the highest discounted pricing, and volume pricing because the MSPs are channelling that volume out,” says Jordan.
“The programme tiers are aligned with the service capability of our partners, which is important because we want to deliver excellence to our partners and customers. We’re focusing on the differentiation to end customers, and we want benefits that truly incentivise and reward the commitment of our partners.”
Rationale for move
Netgear has developed its new partner program after extensive research. “We’ve done a lot of work with partners and customers and gathered market feedback to understand what the pain points are for them,” explains Jordan. “All the market feedback from our partners and customers is to understand what challenges are out there and how we can resolve them effectively.”
The programme was in development for a year, and this was necessary because Netgear wanted to fully understand the problems that customers were facing. “It is important to understand what is keeping them up at night? What challenges are they facing? How can we best fix them?” says Jordan “That’s why we need to deliver a class product to our partners that alleviate these challenges. We need to ensure we are delivering a world-class platform, which we absolutely are, but in tandem with our partners. It takes time to develop, but we had to get it right and we have.
“This is the space that we’re challenging because there are vendors out there that don’t tick all the boxes. Netgear can come in and offer a solid proposition for customers and partners that does.”
Getting involved
With the program now launched, Netgear is looking to expand the number of partners involved in it. “We need to have the right partners in the right tiers and that we have quality partners delivering excellence to end users,” says Jordan. “We have an existing partner base, which is super strong and we’re proud of, but we are looking to recruit additional partners across the tiers to deliver more excellence to customers.
“MSPs and VARs can get involved with the program by registering with the portal or by contacting the sales team.”
