OREANDA-NEWS. March 10, 2015.  Kaspersky Lab is rolling out a more formalized approach to its three-tiered partner program with revenue and business planning requirements for the company's top- performing partners.

Kaspersky will conduct more thorough business planning with platinum and gold-tiered partners and provide more funding for marketing, and front- and back-end incentive rebates, said Kaspersky channel chief John Murdock, a former Juniper Networks executive who was named vice president of channel sales last June. In addition to new revenue goals, the security vendor also is enticing partners to bolster their technical competency by rewarding partners for achieving technical badges under some new technical specializations.Those include endpoint, virtualization, mobility and managed and professional services.

"We've always had a medal partner program structure, but it has been loosely defined and fully wrapped together in a consistent structure globally," Murdock told CRN. "We're now putting in some really good incentives to drive the virtualization and some of the larger deal sizes."

The security vendor is hosting its North American Partner Conference at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Miami this week, inviting nearly 100 engaged partners to speak with senior-level executives, including CEO Eugene Kaspersky, to discuss the security vendor's product road map and channel program improvements. The company has been focused on growing its midmarket and enterprise customer base over the last year, and has announced deals with large manufacturers and financial services firms.