The Fortinet Engage Partner Program has an important goal in mind for partners, which is to provide a flexible platform to build a profitable and highly differentiated security practice that leverages the industry's best solutions to drive customer success. 

Jon Bove, Fortinet VP of Channel Sales, offers his perspective and insights into the program's momentum, success to date, and ongoing opportunity for partners.  

The Fortinet Engage Partner Program

Can you give a brief overview of the Engage Partner program as it stands in 2021? What are some of the key aspects of interest to partners?

Since the Engage Partner program 2.0 launched in March 2021, we've seen immeasurable growth and were recognized for some impressive awards. But all of that is only because our valued partners have joined us and recognized the opportunity in front of them.  

The new partner program was designed to provide an expanded set of benefits to partners, such as free training and our Specializations program, so that partners can leverage the full power of the Fortinet Security Fabric platform. This enables them better to meet the dynamic needs of their customers. 

In this era of rampant ransomware and remote workers, cybersecurity plays a more important role than ever. We've evolved the program in step with these customer needs. For example, new network ecosystems with hybrid cloud environments require specialized sales and technology skills that specialized partners can intelligently address. Fortinet is committed to helping our partners meet new and evolving customer demands created by work-from-anywhere models through Fortinet's Engage Partner program and enablement tools for partners. 

Looking back since the announcement of the Engage Partner program, what is the single most important takeaway about the program for partners, and what makes it unique?

We have been very successful in leading the way in creating a program that offers flexibility, differentiation, and, most importantly, profitability. We enable growth opportunity that is unique with our Security Fabric platform. We do not compete with partners, and instead offer sustained sales, marketing, and executive support to help partners grow productive, predictable, and profitable relationships.

Delivering Partner Opportunities with Fortinet Engage Partner

When you talk about the opportunity with Fortinet with partners, what do you talk about most often? 

I talk about what differentiates Fortinet from the competition so that I can clearly demonstrate the opportunity for partners. For example, unlike other platforms, the Fortinet Security Fabric is an industry-leading integrated platform that offers the broadest security products portfolio, with the flexibility to build solution offerings as the customer demand grows. Fortinet's breadth of products is tightly integrated into one highly automated, platform and includes tools to connect with adjacent technologies. So we enable our partners to meet and exceed their customers' security outcomes, and we give them the flexibility to grow services as their business expands. 

I also tell them that Fortinet enables them to effectively respond to emerging security risks worldwide across the kill chain. We have many patents and an effective threat research and response organization that provides consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence. Also, our leadership in third party validation and independent analyst reports validate our offerings. Our network security solutions are the most deployed, most patented, and among the most validated in the industry.

The Fortinet Engage Partner program helps partners acquire the industry knowledge they need to deliver digital transformation with customizable programs, increase business opportunities, as well as the programs and infrastructure to accelerate their growth.

The Engage program has been recognized for its momentum. Can you share some of those examples?

Our breadth of awards and third-party validations is a testament to Fortinet's technology differentiation, proven credibility, and dedicated, long-term commitment to the channel. The value of these certifications and awards helps us to validate our technologies and improve our development. They also help prospective customers when evaluating technologies from different vendors. Some of our recent awards are:

• Three partner of the year awards from Ingram Micro (Networking and Security Partner of the Year, SMB Alliance Partner of the Year, Trust X Alliance Partner of the Year)
• CDW's "Gold Partner of the Year" Award for 2021
• Fortinet's CEO Ken Xie being listed as a Top 25 Most Influential execs in CRN
• 2021 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors -Network Enterprise
• 2021 Annual Report Card Winners: Solution Providers Give Top Grades To Key Vendors -SD-WAN
• Fortinet's FortiOS 7.0 named "Winner of the 'Network Security - Enterprise' category of CRN's 2021 Tech Innovator Awards

We look forward to continuing to contribute to our partners success and business growth in 2022!

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

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