Poly Brings the Award-Winning Polycom and Plantronics Partner Programs Together for Innovative Program Built on Best Practices

Plantronics, Inc., a global communications company that powers meaningful human connection and collaboration, unveils a new Poly partner program that combines the award-winning Polycom and Plantronics programs under a comprehensive and convenient model that is accessible for partners at all levels. The global program features a new unified portal with easy, real-time access to all assets, training, tools and content that partners need to successfully go to market.

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“We’ve reimagined our program to encourage participation from a broad range of partners and made it more beneficial to partner with Poly,” said Nick Tidd, vice president of global channel sales for Poly. “Our partners consistently tell us that their success depends on their ability to differentiate based on reputation, service delivery capability, and complementary skills. Our goal is to help all partners successfully stand out in the market.”

Poly aims to be the solution of choice whenever and wherever collaboration clouds reach people and delivers the breadth of smart devices and services that help partners capitalize on the many different ways people communicate and collaborate today. The new program, which brings together more than 15,000 partners around the world between Plantronics and Polycom, is designed so partners of all sizes can more easily deliver the most compelling and customized solutions to their customers.

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The Poly partner program shifts the evaluation of partner levels from a focus on revenue to an emphasis on involvement with Poly to support innovation and mutual growth. The model is built around three categories:

• Capabilities, ensuring a deep knowledge base through training and enablement;
• Commitment, a demonstrated focus and investment in Poly; and
• Contribution, which expands beyond just revenue and provides opportunities for bonuses for our partners. Additional benefits include a single instance of deal registration, performance dashboards, and a real-time scorecard to make it easier to track partner standing.

Additional features of the Poly partner program include:

• A new Poly partner portal launching on April 10 which will replace Polycom Partner Connect and Plantronics Plantro.net. The portal offers an interactive and collaborative space to easily connect partners to Poly, support technical expertise, sales, marketing, and continuous real-time learning.
• The Poly partner portal will also provide a comprehensive library of images, marketing assets and co-brandable templates so partners can effectively and efficiently market to customers.
• Poly University provides a full suite of curriculum by specialty to help partners satisfy certification and specialization requirements as well as elective learning. A robust certification program provides individual sales and pre-sales training in various product and service categories.
• Sales tools offer customer testimonials, videos, promotions and a demo discount program to help drive business.

“Poly’s new partner program offers new tools, business opportunities and a refreshing business mindset for the Polycom and Plantronics partners,” said Ira M. Weinstein, founder and managing partner at analyst firm Recon Research. “Many vendor channel programs focus on revenue only, which naturally favors large players over small ones. This new program levels the playing field by rewarding partners for investments they make in working with Poly, not just the number of devices they sell. Poly’s new partner portal and related support tools will help partners stay up-to-date and differentiate themselves in this fast-paced market.”

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