US based high performance networking Solutions provider, Juniper Networks has recently rolled out a new version of its Juniper Partner Advantage (JPA) program. The company has introduced few new accreditation in the upgraded JPAP 4.O that aims to simply partners’ engagement with Juniper Networks and offer them better growth prospects.
In an interaction with Channel Times, Harshavardhan Kathaley, Director – Partner Sales, India & SAARC at Juniper Networks, highlighted various components of the JPA program and its relevance to Juniper’s ‘Partner First’ approach. “We have recently rolled out JPAP 4.0 and have added few new accreditations as part of it. We want to ensure that we continue to support our partners in terms of their ability to take the latest innovation,” Kathaley said.
Juniper Networks operates through its indirect channel in India and have a strong partner ecosystem in the country. The company engages with its partners under the framework of the JPA program. The JPA framework covers all aspects of partnering right from on-boarding- enablement, engagement-business acceleration, profitability and rewards for partners. The JPA program also simplifies categorization of partners such as SIs, VARs, distributors, service providers, etc.
As part of the enhancement of the program, Juniper Networks has increased rebates, marketing development funds, demand generation campaigns, enablement & training, etc. The company has also set up demo labs on the premises of its key partners and distributors. The major objective of these demo labs is to showcase company’s latest technology innovations in the networking space. “Currently we have setup 8-10 labs pan India and we will set up more demo labs in the coming months”, Kathaley said.
Juniper Networks organizes Juniper Partner Advisory Council Meet every year, where company’s strategic partners from all over the world gather on a platform to share their feedback on enhancements in channel initiatives and GTM strategy of the company. This year the Juniper Networks is organizing its JPAC meet in in Bangkok in the month of June. “Juniper Partner Advisory Council Meet is a unique initiative, where we provide a platform to our key partners to share their thoughts on our channel enablement efforts”, Kathaley said.
The company also offers a Shared Services Support, which helps partners build their own services SLA with the customers. “We offer partners a shared services support which helps them build their own services. Shared services are the Juniper backed services where partners build SLA with the customers and they provide the services and that is something partners like the most while working with Juniper. There are many components of these services, which we leave partners to be innovative with rather than binding them as a standardized service. We standardize these services only to the basic level and it is upto them to build service round it,” Kathaley said.
Talking about the key thrust areas in terms of channel engagement in 2017, Kathaley said that the company would continue to engage with its partners on various enablement programs.
“We will ensure that we continue to support our partners in terms of their ability to take the latest innovation to their customers and we are working with them in terms of improving their profitability. We will continue to help our partners get into newer areas in terms of technology and markets so that they can also expand and earn more revenue,” Kathaley said.
In India, Juniper Networks has a wide network of Managed partners who do a large volume of business for the company. The company also has a set of mid-tier partners and SIs, who are majorly the regional partners and they focus on the enterprise and mid-market segment.
The company also engages with the Alliance partners (Technology alliance as well as GTM alliance), who help Juniper Networks build third party stack. The company works with distributors like Redington Distribution, Ingram Micro and Transition Systems and its some of its strategic partners include Wipro, Inspira, Targus, VIS networks etc.
