Your customers are in the process of radically reengineering their networks to keep up with the new challenges and opportunities being provided by the new digital economy. With the right systems, platforms, and strategies in place they can compete more effectively, respond faster to market and consumer demands, and more efficiently engage with their customers to establish and maintain brand loyalty.

In these rapidly expanding and evolving networks, security plays a more critical role than ever. Naturally, this means that how we position security to our customers also needs to evolve. New network ecosystems, such as next-gen branch offices and multi-cloud environments, require specialized sales and technology skills that can overwhelm sales teams trained in traditional security strategies. Supporting a DevOps team, for example, requires knowledge of cloud networks, application development, and container environments -concepts that may be new to many security sales teams.

FortinetEngage -More Flexibility and Greater Opportunity

To address this changing security landscape, Fortinet is introducing a new partner program called Fortinet Engage. Designed to better prepare Fortinet partners to effectively engage and succeed in today's new security environment, this program is based on three basic concepts:

1. ENGAGEMENT. Partners have the flexibility of determining their level of engagement with Fortinet. By selecting the kinds of expertise they want to develop, the benefits they want to enjoy, and the revenue stream they want to develop, partners have more control than ever over their success with Fortinet. Old partner tiers are being replaced with four new levels of partner engagement: Advocate, Select, Advanced, and Expert.

• A FortinetAdvocateis someone interested in starting a partnership with Fortinet. Becoming a Fortinet Advocate has limited requirements, but also limited benefits.
• Fortinet Selectpartners are interested in catering to the SMB market. They are committed to delivering superior security solutions and services designed to meet the unique security concerns of smaller businesses.
• A partner achievesAdvancedstatus through meeting staff certification standards combined with proven success at delivering the full spectrum of Fortinet solutions. These partners are able to handle a variety of implementation requirements.
• Designation as a FortinetExpertis reserved for proven Fortinet Solution experts who not only demonstrate consistently high revenue and the delivery of the full spectrum of Fortinet solutions, but also have a staff of highly trained and certified Fortinet experts who are able to manage the most complex customer deployments.

2. BUSINESS MODEL. Partners will also find that their Fortinet support can be customized to their unique business model. Specialized support is available for three different business models. TraditionalIntegratorsprimarily sell on-premise solutions.Market Place partners are cloud-certified specialists who secure customers using a different consumption model.  AndMSSPpartners earn a significant portion of their revenue from selling managed services. Partners can receive specialized support for any of these business models, or any combination of the three. In addition, all four categories of Fortinet partnership -Advocate, Select, Advanced, and Expert -are available for each of these business models.

3. SPECIALIZATION. In addition to your level of engagement and business model, partners are able to select an area of specialization to receive additional support and benefits. These specialization areas include Dynamic Cloud, Secure Access and Branch, Secure SD-WAN, and Data Center. Customized training, certifications, and programs are available for each of these specializations, with new specializations, such as OT, Zero Trust Network Access, and Security Operations slated for release over the coming quarters.

Expanded Benefits

The new partner program is also designed to provide an expanded set of benefits to partners, such as training and certification so you can leverage a wider range of Fortinet consumption models. This not only enables you to better meet the dynamic and expanding needs of your customers -it also enhances your ability to "land and expand." With the Fortinet program behind you, a single opportunity can be easily expanded to a long-term relationship.

When you are armed with a broad portfolio of integrated solutions, tools, and platforms available in any form factor, and solutions designed to operate natively in and between any networked environments, you have the opportunity to radically change the nature of your relationship with your customer. And significantly expand your business and revenue opportunities.

Your investment in a Fortinet partnership and your level of engagement -including the level of expertise and NSE certification your team achieves -has a direct impact on what you can expect in return. Adding business and consumption models to position Fortinet solutions can expand your opportunities, while remaining laser-focused on a specific approach can help differentiate you from generalists. You can decide which model works best, and Fortinet is here to support you. But regardless of the route you take, developing business and technical expertise will also help you build a stronger relationship with our team, which will also help you build and drive opportunity.

A Partner Program Designed for How Organizations Do Business

Today's evolving digital economy is radically changing how organizations around the world, both big and small, do business. It is expanding their markets and opportunities, leveling the playing field, and enabling nimbler and more responsive business strategies. To achieve this, these organizations are rapidly consuming and deploying digital innovations that have radically retooled their networks. And traditional security solutions and sales approaches are simply not designed to protect these customers or address their security needs.

Fortinet's expanded and redesigned security portfolio is comprised of the broadest, most integrated, and highly automated security solutions in the world. These new solutions are designed to meet the security demands of organizations -today and tomorrow -with the fastest and most advanced hardware and software engineering, most deeply integrated solutions, and expansive portfolio in the security market. And Fortinet's new partner program is designed to help partners take full advantage of the growing opportunity that the expanding digital marketplace is providing.

Current partners can visit the Partner Portal to find important updates from Fortinet and our partner program.