From Cloud To Mobile-App, RSA Aims At Partner-Savvy Initiatives

Mumbai, Sep 7: RSA, the security wing of EMC2, has made some recent incorporation to their partner eco-system which is already showing positive results in interactions with the channel network.

In an interview with Channel Times, Kartik Sahani, Sr. Regional Director , RSA – India & SAARC, lists out various channel-friendly initiatives formulated by the security solutions company for Indian channels.

Revamped Partner Portal and M-App:
The recent significant enhancements to the RSA Partner Central portal – and new mobile app –represent our continuing efforts to support our valued partners. RSA Partner Central is the starting point for anything our partners might need. New mobile app offers anywhere-anytime access – downloading product and solution info from anywhere, anytime to refer while they are conversing with customers. It’s an easy reference app which they have quick access to. (At this stage it doesn’t allow deal registration through this application. This app was developed in response to partner’s requirement raised during the last partner survey done by RSA.)

Refined page layouts help partners locate the assets they need quickly, instant access to RSA thought leadership, battle cards, analyst reports, and other assets in Chinese are some of the unique features of the app.

Partner Fragmentation:‘

“Based on the feedback from partners after various workshops, RSA has categorized their partners into three categories- Consultants, System Integrators and Tier-2 partners. Some partners submitted various suggestions and we heard the voices and drafted our channel roadmap accordingly,” he says.

Some of the key modifications:

Partners wanted to be involved in the deployment business rather than working as a product seller. By involving them in the deployment cycle, a new revenue opportunity of service revenue is also assured.

A series of trainings tailor-made for the partners based on their expertise on any two products of RSA were imparted to them based on their requests.

Definitions for channel segmentation were made in Platinum, Gold and Silver. For example, if a partner aspires for a platinum certificate, he/she needs to have certain number of engineers certified, should sell minimum two products of RSA and has particular financial targets to meet.

Health Checks and Reviews:

Any project dedicated to a channel partner will be segmented into multiple milestones. RSA team will closely watch the way the deployment is carried and in case the RSA team finds, if the partner is not in tune with what is needed for the project, they will be notified where they go wrong and will be educated on the precautionary measures to avoid such problems in future. RSA also gives its partners a choice to review their accounts on a quarterly or half-yearly basis and opine for the client, what is needed for the present scenario or in future (say for example, the client may want to expand for 20 new countries) and educate the customer with the latest tech trends.

Special focus on SMB customers:

Not all the partners will have focus only on the large enterprises. To cater to the partners fulfilling the SMB companies, RSA has framed a special focus on that particular segment. The bundles, technology and even prices are tailor-made for the SMB companies. The solutions are also said to be heterogeneous working in any environment and gives incidence response.

Live-Demo of solutions:

One challenge we had faced in the recent days is that partners and RSA team have to carry machines to the premises of the client to show the PoC and to make it happen, it takes minimum 20 days. Considering the criticality of the working days in sales divisions, RSA has developed two dedicated areas in our R&D centres which will have the entire product portfolios of RSA and the partner just needs to fly the client to the R&D centre. The advancement is such that even the customer data can be brought to the RSA demo center and even challenges faced inside their organization can be overcome with the help of RSA experts in the R&D lab.