Juniper is instituting a raft of channel changes to help expand its market coverage and partner support.
According to newly installed A/NZ channel director, Sander Dales, the decision to revamp its indirect approach was prompted by its recent Redline, Kagoor and Peribit acquisitions. Dales replaces previous director, Brian Allsopp, who has been promoted to a new Asia-Pacific channel role.
The networking vendor is in the process of developing an enterprise sales team following the creation of its emerging technologies channel support team earlier this year. It would assist partners in pursuing large opportunities in verticals like government, banking and manufacturing, Dales said.
"Making investments in our own organisation will also help to manage customer relationships, create brand awareness and preference, identify projects and close business for the channel," he said.
Juniper's J-Partner program had also been updated following the acquisitions to include a number of additional training modules in areas like prioritising WAN traffic and application acceleration as well as SIP and VoIP security, Allsopp said.
As a result, he claimed Juniper had seen the number of certified engineers within its partner ranks increase tenfold to 300 in just two quarters.
"Peribit requires a high level of consultancy - trial, analysis and planning - before the product goes in," he said.
"Given the impact on the network, formalised training makes sure customers get good solutions and partners make a dollar out of it."
According to commercial manager of distribution partner ChannelWorx, Paul Oxley, Juniper's partners had benefitted from recent channel changes.
"Following one of the training drives for a niche SSL product we saw a massive increase in sales," he said.
