Kaspersky Lab’s New 2018 Partner Program Set To Boost UK Channel Profits

New changes to Kaspersky Lab’s UK Partner Program will help its partners increase their profit margins in 2018. The program provides a world-class ecosystem of tools, new incentives and support to help partners make the most of opportunities in today’s cybersecurity industry.

It’s a tough time for the value-added resellers. A slump in channel profits, blamed mainly on Brexit aftershocks and currency fluctuations, has affected the UK’s top 100 resellers – with average operating profit margins sinking from 4.4 to 3.4 per cent. However, Kaspersky Lab is today announcing new incentives to its Partner Program that will help resellers boost their bottom line and protect their profits – by providing more discounts to their loyal partners (lead deal brokers) than other reseller providers can earn.

The change to the program will increase retained guaranteed channel margin of loyal partners up to 25 per cent. This increase is due to Kaspersky Lab giving more discounts to these partners (the first partner to interest an organisation in Kaspersky Lab’s products and broker a deal). Kaspersky Lab then also fully supports that deal post-sale, providing support and tools via the program.

“The changes we’re making to our partner program will help resellers boost their profits by protecting their margins,” says Russ Madley, Head of B2B Channel at Kaspersky Lab.

The Kaspersky Lab Partner Program has been designed with partners’ needs in mind, giving them easy access to the resources they need to work more efficiently and boost their earnings – one of its largest UK resellers generates an average of over 30% profit margin through the program.

“Since forming the proactive partnership with Kaspersky in 2016, the channel account team has quickly made a strong impression supporting and proactively working with our sales teams to close down deals. This has proved fruitful with significant traction across our sales floors, reflected in the growing opportunity pipeline and complemented by a strong increase in profitability over the last 12 months. We look forward to continued growth in 2018 and beyond,” John Inwood, Partner Account Manager, Insight.

Offering discounts and support through Kaspersky Lab’s comprehensive partner team, the program also provides investment through lucrative deal registration and incentive offerings as part of the unique High Performance Club program (including driving experiences), which extends across the globe to over 3,500 clients.

As well as making constant updates to its partner program – adding more training and incentives – to improve the experience for partner firms overall, Kaspersky Lab rolled out specific initiatives in 2017. One of these was the ‘Move to Gold’ campaign, which was specifically designed to on-board new partners and accelerate the right profile of partners to give them Gold partner benefits for a limited time while they gain the correct accreditations and revenues to become full time. This incentive benefited 10 of Kaspersky Lab’s partners who received Gold status.

Kaspersky Lab’s channel business went from strength to strength in 2017, with Q3 having seen a 54% revenue growth and the channel team doubling in size. Kaspersky Lab products continue to be the most tested and awarded within Gartner, IDC and Forrester’s range of rankings and accreditations.