Ping Identity refreshes its partner program to remove confusion amongst partners

Robert Cipriani director channel and alliances APJ at Ping Identity breaks down the three new tracks in the Nexus Partner Program.

Identity security and access management brand Ping Identity updated its partner program globally to eliminate confusion amongst its partners.

Robert Cipriani, director channel and alliances APJ at Ping Identity told CRN Australia the update removed ambiguity across different partners and internally by creating three distinct pathways.

They are focused on traditional resellers, delivery and technology partners to resell, implement and innovate.

“We're seeing an increase in that from customer adoption of our technologies, and there's a demand for services partners and pure place services partners,” he said.

“Then we've got the technology alliance partners, which allow us to bolt into their ecosystems.”

Cipriani noted that these changes were to bring it under the Nexus Partner Program umbrella.

“With that there's training, certifications, different types of partners get access to different people within our organisation, from a sales perspective, from an exec perspective, from marketing and training," he explained.

“Even with the technology alliance partners with the ecosystems, it's helping them create a connector so we can make it seamless for customers to integrate into technologies that they've acquired or bought.”

Cipriani explained how they found out there was confusion amongst their partners.

“When you look at partner programs, you get pigeon holed into a ‘partner for a vendor’. When you look at the partner vendor, and you start profiling the particular partner,” he said.

“From a vendor's perspective you've got that co-sell, resell, which customers and how you go to market that way.

“But then you've got these partners that you need to expand and grow your business, which are the consulting partners and boutique consulting partners.”

He explained this new program was created to differentiate these partners internally and externally.

“A resell partner can also be a delivery partner, then you can start profiling the actual partner itself to say, ‘I've got strong relationships with customers, which is a bonus for us, they can do delivery’.

“Then when customers come to us and say, ‘who do you recommend in the market, this is the requirements that we need’, then we refer the right partner to the right customer.”

Possibilities for ANZ partners

Looking at how partners can benefit from the new program, Cipriani highlighted the consulting revenue as an “advantage” to partners.

"What the partners get out of it is the consulting revenue, initially for implementation, but the ongoing operation and running of the customer environments,” he said.

“For us, in terms of resale, that's a point in time revenue for partners, but where they make their money and where they grow, in terms of growing their identity practices is around the consulting and the services they add around that.”

The program has been running in APJ for the past four months, Cipriani said he has received good feedback from their partners.

“One of the things that we try and get away from is there's channel conflict everywhere, but just eliminating that for partners as well,” he said.

When they are onboarding new or existing partners, Cipriani said a good way of level setting them is asking what capabilities they have.

"We use that as reevaluating our existing partners and figuring out what we need in terms of new partners, in terms of recruiting, and that's all driven by customer demand,” he said.

Cipriani said one of the unique things he has seen is their customers demand what they expect from the partner community.

“That's probably the biggest thing that's driven us to make the change. You would have seen from [founder] Andre Durand with Ping being a partner first organisation as well,” he explained.

“That's probably the the other exciting thing for partners themselves is that, you know, there's a potential of growing their businesses as well as helping us grow our business.”