McEvoy had noticed their customers were going around the partners and buying direct off the AWS Marketplace, prompting a sit-down with AWS to figure out how partners can be rewarded for Marketplace sales.
“There are a lot of partners who are afraid of the Marketplace because they can go direct and they can lose their end customers,” McEvoy told CRN.
The discussions with AWS led to Trend Micro being a launch partner in the Consulting Partner Private Offers program, which allows partners to become the seller of record for any transaction that occurs through the AWS Marketplace over a one, two, or three-year period, McEvoy said.
Purchasing through a solution provider rather than directly from the AWS Marketplace simplifies invoicing for customers, provides access to complementary partner-delivered services, and offers the opportunity for additional discount, according to McEvoy.
“We’ve seen this evolution of the customer’s buying behavior and we need to map to how they’re buying,” McEvoy said.
Trend Micro additionally wants to recruit AWS Well-Architected Partners to provide customers with access to skills that traditional resellers don’t have, McEvoy said.
The company has already onboarded and enabled six WAR partners, and given that AWS has 215 WAR partners in the United States, Trend Micro is looking to recruit a lot more WAR partners into the mix.
AWS WAR partner Kinect Consulting started working with Trend Micro in July 2020, and the company has been impressed by the simplicity of Trend Micro’s enablement resources as well as the ease of collaborating with other third-party vendors, according to Kevin Mead, VP of business development.
Trend Micro’s partner program enables Kinect to help secure the customer’s assets, which Mead said is the first requirement when migrating a client to the cloud.
Outside of the cloud, McEvoy said Trend Micro has adjusted its discount structure to reward partners who are hunting new business.