Just four and half months ago, I was asked to take on Symantec’s Worldwide Partner Business and it’s been an incredible ride. We have been very focused on completing the work to fully integrate our partner community and our partner business. I’m thrilled to share that on 1 APR, 2017, Symantec goes live as one company with one, powerful partner community.
This just might be the Symantec you’ve been waiting for. We’re recommitting to our partner community and putting into place new tools, processes, and programs that will help you drive growth in your Symantec business. These will all be live on the 10 APR 2017.
I think you’ll like this new Symantec:
- Fully Committed to Channel Partners: You play an even more integral role in our GTM
- Easy to Do Business With: We are simplifying our business and go-to-market operations
- Innovative Solutions that Sell: Our Integrated Cyber Defense Platform is second to none
- Rewards Investment: We’re building true partnerships—you invest, we invest. You grow, we invest.
What does it mean to be fully committed to channel partners? We’re approaching the market with a “Channel-first Strategy”. We recognize the value you provide to our mutual customers at all stages of the sales cycle and we’ll work together with you to service these customers successfully.
And what does it mean to be easy to do business with? Just like it sounds. As we looked to integrate our partner business, we saw that there were many opportunities to simplify our channel operations, to make it more streamlined to do business with us. Streamlining business operations is always beneficial—it can lower your cost of sales, speeds up time to close, which speeds up growth, strengthens your competitiveness because you’re responding faster to your customers, and ultimately helps you provide the best solutions to your customers’ cyber security challenges.
What changes are we making, specifically? We will share much more detail on all these changes and provide your Order Operations teams with detailed training in early April 2017. For now, know that we have streamlined several processes and integrated several tools. Here are the top-level changes we have made:
Integrating our Distribution partner landscape, which will result in more support for our Channel partners as Distributors invest in more resources to support you in efforts like:
- Proof of Concepts (POCs)
- Training
- Order Operations that makes ordering and fulfillment fast and easy
Consolidated to one global Corporate price list with a simplified SKU structure
Strengthened our compliance capabilities and processes
Optimizing the process of renewals orders, which will require separate quotes for new licenses and maintenance renewals. This will take place in August 2017.
Using “SymOrder” (formerly known as “Blue Store”) to place orders, including automated non-standard pricing acceptance as well as automated Opportunity Registration acknowledgement(s) of accepted front-end discounts
Taking Secure One, our newly integrated partner program live on April 10, 2017, which includes Opportunity Registration moving to solely a front-end discount. For an overview of Secure One and how it works, watch this short video: [LINK TO VIDEO]
Created a single partner portal in PartnerNet, live on April 10, 2017
All of these changes will be effective in early April. We will continue the flow of information so you know how each change may impact your own operations.
INTERMITTENT SERVICE ON BOTH PARTNER PORTALS
As we transition to our newly integrated partner portal, we’ll need to bring the system down temporarily. During that process, there will be limited capability to PartnerNet and on the Blue Coat partner portal, starting 1 APR 2017.
Blue Coat Partner Portal
You will still be able to review any content that we have posted on the portal, but you won’t be able to:
- Enroll in the partner program
- Register and manage deals in our Opportunity Registration program
- Access and manage your MDF
Symantec PartnerNet
You will still be able to read and download content, take any partner training courses and register deals in our Margin Builder program, but you won’t be able to:
- Change your partner profile
- Enroll/Add secondary contacts
- Enroll in the Secure One partner program
- Access the partner locator
- Access Partner Benefits (PBA)
- Register and manage deals in our Opportunity Registration program
- Access and manage SPDF through Birch
PartnerNet will come back in full on 10 APR 2017. If you were previously a Blue Coat partner, you’ll need to log in with the same credentials you used on the Blue Coat partner portal. Previous Symantec partners can simply log in with their original PartnerNet logins. More instructions will come to you on the 10 APR 2017, when PartnerNet comes back up.
CLOSING THE YEAR STRONG
We are very excited to pass this important milestone in our integration efforts and while we’ve shared a top-line view of all the changes that will happen in early April, we are very focused on continuing to serve customers with the market’s most comprehensive cyber security portfolio. We’ll work with you to ensure you get all the support you need to continue to win in the market.