Engaging with Partners to Grow their Critical Role

Himanshu Kumar Gupta, Senior Director, Government Business & Channels, Trend Micro, India & SAARC talks about how they keep their partners on top

- BHARTI TREHAN

Tell us about the role of a partner programme in driving transformational business growth

Our strategy in India, with respect to channels, revolves around two primary pillars. The first is competency – continuously enhancing the skills and expertise of our partner ecosystem. The second is coverage – ensuring broader market outreach. In simpler terms, one pillar focuses on technology, while the other emphasises sales, revenue and market coverage.

Currently, our partner programmes serve as catalysts for enabling our partners to align with our vision for the local market. These programmes are tailored to address either the competency or the coverage aspect. For example, one key objective of our partner programmes is to expand market coverage. To achieve this, we rely on partners because there are limits to what we can accomplish directly. Partners bring invaluable last-mile connectivity, enabling us to reach specific accounts and sectors while providing critical insights into the local needs of particular industries.

Partners are in essence, force multipliers for us. Accordingly, our programmes are designed to address these goals by strengthening either the competency pillar or the coverage pillar.

What methods do you use for clear and transparent communication with partners, which align with your organisation's expectations?

We categorise our partners into tiers and tailor our communication strategies accordingly. For tier-one partners, our approach is distinct and designed to meet their scale and capabilities. Tier-two partners, which typically include mid-sized companies that have shown significant growth over the past decade, are a key focus for us. Many of them are part of our strategic programmes and receive additional privileges compared to tier-three partners.