“We need to work with our partners to get the right scale and reach in the market” says Mark Nutt, Head of Channel, Veritas

In an exclusive conversation with DQ Channels, Mark Nutt, Head of Channel, Veritas, talked about how Veritas as a separate company is going to be positioned globally and the unique go-to-market innovation being adopted to create winning proposition for both the company as well as the channel partners.

Q. Post the formation of Veritas as a separate company, what have been some of significant developments. Also, what’s the feedback from the market?

When we announced the separation of Symantec into two independent publicly traded companies, the intent was to focus on growth and being agile to drive this growth. While one business focused on enterprise security, the other one will be focused information management. The latter one has been branded as Veritas and we are delighted to bring the brand back in the market.

By April this year, we have successfully done the separation of our salesforce. With this, we now have a dedicated sales team focused on Veritas. By October this year, we are targeting operational separation, which would include our enabling as well as supporting functions. And we look at legal separation by the end of the calendar year.

Since the time we announced this move, we have been successful in meeting the targeted plan. The energy that we put into the Veritas brand is already spread in the market and we are getting tremendous feedback from the customers as well as partners. In fact, Veritas brand is very much trusted by the partner community and they have whole heartedly welcomed the brand back in the market.

Our channel strategy is to focus more on fewer partners and build stronger partnerships so that there is significant growth of their businesses with Veritas. And we are certainly getting a positive feedback from the market.

Q. Since the separation process is still underway, how are you ensuring that the right message is being communicated to your partners?

We do have to work hard on our communication. And that’s why we have invested heavily on the marketing activities to improve the way we communicate to our channel partners. We have also maintained our investigative partner advisory councils, which is an opportunity for our key partners to give us a feedback on our performance as we walk through the separation process.

Another initiative that we are driving is setting up regular calls directly with our partners and distributors. Here, we are setting up monthly calls with our managed partners where we talk about our strategy, progress that we are making through our separation, products, and roadmap planning. And most importantly, we create an environment where partner can ask questions.

The major part of the communication goes through our team like partner account managers or distribution account managers so that partner advisory councils and the monthly calls reinforces the work that our team is doing. And again the feedback we are receiving from partners is that we are keeping them informed and they are very happy with the progress that we are making through the separation.

Q. As a head of channels for Veritas, what are your key focus areas?

We have to have a clear vision and what we are trying to achieve with our partners. Our aim is to have a clear vision, riding that into a strategy, and sharing it with our partners as well as across the organization so that everyone understands the direction we are heading in. Our strategy is very focused on scale and reach. As a company, we have a high addressable market and a strong available market that we can service. We need to work with our partners to get the right scale and reach in the market. This also means our coverage model has to be the key element in this process and that we cover the right partners in this journey. Since, we are going through consolidation exercise at this moment, it is important that we increase our relevance with those partners by selecting and investing in them and hopefully, they invest in us as well.

We also have a clear strategy for distribution. When we think about global opportunity, the distribution is key and foundational to the way we cover the market. Therefore, it’s very important to have a strategy and execute our plan with the help of distributors. The other important point in terms of our channel is making sure that we have a right partner ecosystem that enables us to grow in a sustainable and profitable way. So, these are the pillars of our strategy that we have documented.

We also recognize that for our customers the opportunities and the market are changing. For example, they want on-premise and consolidated solutions, converged infrastructure, looking for managed services or cloud offerings. Hence, we need to recruit and develop the right partners to make sure that we are providing the choice and value around Veritas.

I would also like to add here that it is very important to understand the role our partners are playing – be it distributors, solution providers, or global system integrators. And in turn, the role we are playing in supporting them. So, we are doing a lot of work in terms of role clarity of our teams as well as partners. We have been very clear in the work that needs to be get done, how we are going to measure it, and then, how we are going to reward effectively.

One of my immediate priorities is to consolidate our global program that we rolled out in October last year and the framework of the program has been consistently deployed globally. There are some changes in terms of how components of that program have been deployed and what’s important for me is making sure that we drive greater consistency and commitment to the program.

Q. As you run through this transition, what all important aspects you need to consider?

For me, one of the key things is prioritization. As we go through the separation from Symantec, we need to prioritize a lot of things. As part of my structure, I have invested in global resources that I require in this journey. For example, I have done investments in strategic partners (some of them are based out of India), global distribution system, local teams in each of the geographies (Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific regions), and creating a transformation team.

The most important aspects of us going through this transition are the priorities and how we are going to align on them and synchronize not just across the teams that I am responsible for but from finance, legal, and operations. It’s my transition team to make sure that we have got the right plans in place in order for us to be successful. My objective is to make sure that when we go through this separation, we need do that in the quickest and efficient way for our partners.

Q. With the separation of the two companies, how have you divided the partner ecosystem?

When we think about Symantec partner ecosystem, we had very few partners selling both security and information management products. Fortunately for us, the global program that we launched last year is competency based. So, there are clear competencies on security and on information management. What we have been able to do is to ensure that we apply the right focus to the information management only partners and we are working in the collaborative way with our colleagues on the security business to make sure that we manage partners who are selling both security and information management.

In a very few instances, a partner may end up with an account manager from Symantec and an account manager for Veritas. But in my knowledge, 70-80% of the partners have already decided on the product line that they are going to sell in the market. With our distributors, again a higher percentage of them are selling both security and information management.

Q. Talking about the Indian market, what significance does it hold for Veritas and what’s your immediate action plan?

We have developed a strategy and plan for the Indian market. Firstly, it is very important to go out and engage with our teams, partners, and customers in the countries that we operate in. And the same goes for India as well, which is a key market for us. We have had a number of partner meetings in the country and received strong feedback around opportunities that would drive growth.

Furthermore, partners also gave a positive feedback on the team and some of the initiatives that we are currently driving and showing solid results. The primary objective to capture all sorts of feedback from the channel community along with better understand the underlying opportunities in this country.

Q. Since you have already embarked on this journey, what kind of go-to-market innovation have you adopted that create winning proposition for Veritas?

Our key strategy is to go for ‘fewer but bigger bets’. We just want to focus on selecting the right partners that would give us scale and reach, provide value, and drive profitable growth. We recognize that we have got strong products and offerings along with a well-designed roadmap that would fuel growth. We got to invest in our business to drive that growth and we got to partner with organizations that are investing in their business.

When we think about fewer bigger bets, the criteria that we are looking for is partners who are growing and investing to drive further growth of their business. We recognize that India is high growth market and many Indian organizations are driving growth outside the country in places like EMEA or Americas. Here, there is an opportunity for us to choose the right partners and put the right investments so that we have the plans that would drive growth for both organizations.

Q. Again in this transition, how much of your focus is on the enablement of the partners?

Enablement for us is the critical success factor. We need to enable our partners in terms of market awareness, where’s the opportunity today, and where will it be in the future. Enablement is also done around selling – how do we sell effectively together. And once we have sold, how do we deliver a particular solution. Here comes the technical enablement and support. We have invested in dedicated partner enablement teams globally as well as locally.

Another area where we have invested is dedicated technical sales and support capabilities aligned to our partners. So, recognizing the enablement of our channel will be a key enabler to our continued worldwide growth.