Verizon Enterprise Solutions said Tuesday its channel strategy has progressed leaps and bounds since the launch of its partner program in 2013, but promised solution providers that the best is yet to come from the U.S. telecommunications and cloud services giant.

Verizon vowed to continue investing in and fine-tuning the indirect channel model it began building out last year, said Matthew Montgomery, director of Verizon Enteprise Solutions, in an address to solution providers at the 2014 Best of Breed event, taking place this week in Orlando, Fla.

Verizon unveiled a redesigned version of its partner program in February 2013 that condensed six previous programs into one and aimed to drastically simplify things for partners. 

The program -- which today houses around 1,000 global partners -- features four solution tracks: Advanced Communications and Network; Cloud, IT and Applications; Mobility; and Machine-to-Machine communications, an emerging wireless technology that's powering the Internet of Things.

Partners can also choose how they want to engage with Verizon through three partner models: the agent model, the resale model and what Verizon calls the "sell with" model.

Through the agent model, partners resell select Verizon products and services, while they can also package and market those solutions to prospective customers through the resale model. The "sell with" model has partners refer deals to Verizon or sell hand-in-hand with the company.

Verizon also has an Innovation Track within the program, where the tables turn and Verizon actually resells partners' offerings, Montgomery said. For now, he said, this program has applied more to Verizon technology partners, such as mobile device management vendor MobileIron, but the plan is to open it up more broadly to the channel.

"Where we have launched this today would be in the MDM space, with relationships with MobileIron and AirWatch, but we are expanding that to include those innovative applications we need to complete our business," Montgomery said.

Paul Anderson, CEO of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based solution provider Novacoast, said he is evaluating a partnership with Verizon, which would be his first in the telecom market.

"For my company, it's a new venture for us to get into carrier resale. We are really just getting exposed to the opportunity, and they are obviously one of the key players," Anderson said. "I love all the conversations they are having around partnering and the fact that they said they have a compensation neutral plan for their reps. That gives me more comfort in investing and partnering with them, knowing that I won't have field conflict."

Verizon is one of several carriers looking to recruit solution provider partners, as the traditional IT and telecom channels continue to converge. AT&T, for example, launched last year a partner program of its own that is focused on IT solution providers and VARs.

Montgomery said Verizon's next goal is to expand the Verizon Partner Program globally -- it just recently launched in Europe -- and to continue to push more of Verizon's business, in general, through the channel.

Verizon opened up in July an additional 1,700 of its top enterprise accounts, which historically went direct, to partners. The company last month also tapped channel veteran Adam Famularo, a former channel executive at CA Technologies, as its new vice president of global channels.

"In 2013, we launched our partner program and I think we have made -- and I think the industry believes that we’ve made -- a tremendous amount of success," Montgomery said.

PUBLISHED OCT. 14, 2014