Palo Alto Network’s partnership model is based on integrity, flexibility and adaptability

Krithiniwas Neelakantan      
Channels & Alliances Leader, Palo Alto Networks

“A robust partner program is key to unlocking growth, innovation, and driving customer success for a cybersecurity organization. In the post-covid new-normal, cybersecurity vendors can leverage the strong relationships channel partners have developed in markets to reach millions of new businesses across multiple levels. A collaborative two-way handshake between vendor and partner is key for a cybersecurity company to thrive. Palo Alto Networks’ NextWave Partner Program is designed and built to deliver this.

NextWave 3.0 – a new enhanced partner program

At the beginning of 2021, the current iteration of our partner program, NextWave 3.0, was kicked off to sharpen our focus on providing incentives and value for our partners. With Nextwave 3.0, we added specialization benefit plans that gave our partners graded benefits based on the resources invested, business growth, and competencies acquired. 

When it comes to developing partnerships within the NextWave program, our models are crafted on three key pillars: integrity, flexibility, and adaptability.  

We enable partners to adopt our “differentiation with specialization” approach which allows them to deploy every product in our portfolio as per their specialized needs. This was at the core of NextWave 3.0 which allowed partners to build their security expertise through three new Prisma SASE, Prisma Cloud, and Cortex XDR/XSOAR specializations. 

Delivery of such a service on a flexible platform is crucial. A flexible structure that provides our partners more ways to maintain their NextWave level means more benefits to the end-user which, therefore, means success for our partners and us. 

Finally, seeing how the pandemic forced enterprises to relook at operations on a global scale, adaptability has become a key part of our channel partner ecosystem. As security partners are now fast adopting new digital technologies, staying ahead of the curve by building services that keep them safe for the long term is essential.”

“We enable partners to adopt our “differentiation with specialization” approach. This was at the core of NextWave 3.0 which allowed partners to build their security expertise through three new Prisma SASE, Prisma Cloud, and Cortex XDR/XSOAR specializations.”