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Channel growth a priority for Juniper Networks
The vendor's recently appointed EMEA channel head is looking to work more closely with its top tier of partners
Juniper' Network's recently appointed EMEA channel boss has set his sights on delivering growth and believes that it can work much more closely with existing partners.
Sander Groot has been with Juniper for 17 years and involved in many channel facing roles and stepped into the current position, running the EMEA channel, back in November.
"I am very much enjoying the role so far and I have a very simple goal in theory. I need to grow the business," he added "My mission and goal is to have the indirect part of the business grow."
The key to that growth is to work more closely with the top tier 'managed partners' which number 80 across EMEA to get them to put greater efforts into selling the vendor.
Groot is currently on a tour of those 80 partners and is telling them that there are rewards on offer to those that back the vendor: "I want to make sure our partners get one to one attention and I they grow with us they deserve our support."
"I am asking them the most important question: Dear partner do you have the appetite to grow with us even faster than you are doing now?" he added "I want to grow and grow with the people who have the appetite to grow with me and I am sitting here with open arms."
The vendor has three tiers of partner - J reseller, select and elite - and the ambition is to get more to move into the select band.
Distribution is there to help and the vendor is making training available to those that are looking to get staff certified to move up the partner programme levels.
But this is a two-pronged approach and Groot is also open to the idea of working with fresh partners that could come on board with vertical knowledge or from a background working with other vendors.
Juniper has been actively building an ecosystem with other vendors, including Red Hat and Nutanix, and wants its partners to explore the options that generates.
"We are in a multi-cloud world and new partnerships with Red Hat and Nutanix and I want partners to look into that and it is part of our DNA to embrace it," he said.
