Masergy Zenith Program helps partners reach companies of all sizes with flexible SASE solutions

The demand for innovations like AI-driven SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is being driven by businesses that continue to struggle with the challenges of work-from-home (WFH) business models, data security, and the ongoing need for digital transformation. For the IT leaders tasked with taking these initiatives on, each one can feel like moving a mountain. It’s not easy, which makes the channel partner community critical for companies wanting rapid and reliable solutions that can also provide a competitive edge.

Masergy is a partner-first company in the central stages of re-energizing our partner community, helping them offer high-value services with Masergy’s innovative solution portfolio. In fact, Masergy’s Zenith Program has been in place for just over six months, which makes now a great time to check in on the progress we’ve made and look at what’s coming next for the channel.

Don’t miss this Telecom Reseller podcast, where I also summarize how partners are using Masergy’s Zenith Program to sell business outcomes.

Investments create payouts for partners

Since joining Masergy in July 2020, I’ve been working to reignite our channel program, putting more dedicated resources in place to sharpen our focus on partners. Here are the investments we’ve made to date:

• We hired in six new channel managers to support our Master Agents and we’ve expanded our channel marketing team
• We changed the channel support to give additional focus on the sub-agents, aligning our regional sales executives with the local partner agents to strategize and execute in market
• Our APEX sub-agent tier offers benefits that agents would only get with Masergy–we pass them BANT qualified leads and work bi-directionally to support them in their demand generation efforts and social selling
• We expanded our investment in our Top Masters to drive joint value to their agents via sales enablement, go-to-market, and customer support
• We doubled down on training, to ensure our partners have the full picture of Masergy’s value for their clients–we have a comprehensive library of online classes in addition to the webinars we host on a monthly basis
• We have a dedicated “SWAT-like” team that supports large-value deals–it’s a white glove experience from top to bottom
• We implemented an enhanced marketing development funds (MDF) program and are executing a number of lead generation campaigns with our partners – everything from digital advertising, ABM targeting, content syndication, new prospect programs, to virtual events

The result: accelerated sales. Overall sales have been very strong – up year-over-year and reflective of the value our solutions bring in helping enterprises digitally transform. We have also seen a significant impact in go-to-market acceleration since the beginning of our fiscal year in July 2020. With more focus on partners it’s only natural that the channel is now making up over 80% of our monthly bookings.

Looking ahead, we will be expanding our channel model to include more VARs and are working with several of the top distributors who are eager to move from selling equipment to adding value with subscription-based services from Masergy. VARs have a heavy influence today, and we are connecting with the existing VAR community to educate them on the expanded role of selling SD-WAN and SASE as a managed service.

Winning with companies of all sizes: Digital transformation is network-centric

Before–when employees worked in the office–companies were compute-centric. But that has all changed now. The cloud, mobility, work from anywhere, and AI make businesses network-centric. The digital network experience is now the foundation for business success.

These trends have created an opportunity for everyone in the managed services business. Networking, remote connectivity, security, application experience are all more important today and yet more difficult. Organizations need help in managing their IT environment, and Masergy helps partners arrive with one cloud and network platform that can address the needs of any business–no matter where they are in their digital transformation journey.

That flexibility is a recipe for growth, and the formula is reaching companies of all sizes.

Combining our partner-first approach with the superior flexibility and reliability of our solutions, partners have the ability to win across all market segments — from large global enterprises to regional, mid-market businesses. There seemed to be a perception that Masergy solutions were best fit for large globally distributed enterprises, when in fact Masergy’s customer base is balanced across the mid-market and large enterprise sector. For instance:

• 62% of the new logos we’ve sold in the last 2 years are mid-market in size
• 40% of our customers are companies with $250M or less in annual revenue

And now with more mid-market companies seeking managed SD-WAN and SASE services, our value proposition is resonating with an even wider array of companies.

The Zenith Partner Program was designed for our community of master agents and sub agents and delivers increased earnings potential, enhanced marketing support and expanded training. We offer partners the opportunity to work with a globally recognized leader, with best-of-breed technology, in a fast-growth market. Virtual workforces are accelerating investments in SASE. There’s no better time to be selling platforms that bundle SD-WAN, security, and UCaaS into one solution.

Partners who need more than just a product but an end-to-end solution with unparalleled customer experiences and relationships that drive mutual success, lead every sale with Masergy.

Learn more about our Zenith Program