Open Text revamps channel program

Chris Petersen has been appointed to the newly created role of manager for channels and alliances A/NZ. He will be responsible for driving business and managing and building the company’s channel relationships across the region.

Petersen told CRN that his first priority will be to implement a support structure for resellers of Open Text's products. Instituting regular user groups and developing training programs will be the first step in forming closer relationships with Open Text's channel partners, said Petersen.

“Not having a channel manager onboard, I’m actually quite proud of resellers - they’ve done a great job over the last 18 months to 2 years. We’ll be providing them the sales and technical enablement which they haven’t had. They’ve been doing a great job by themselves, but it’s time for us to step up as a company and really provide those resources for them,” he said.

Open Text's acquisitions of Artesia, Ixos Software and Hummingbird necessitated an expansion of staff to help their reseller partners market Open Text's value propositions to their customers more effectively, he added.

“We’re really excited, we’ve got a good set of resellers and they’ve stuck by us over the time that we’ve amalgamated all these different and varying businesses that really have something to say to the content management space,” he said.

Also joining Open Text is Delicia Cordeaux in the newly created role of technical director for Asia Pacific. Working with Petersen, Cordeaux will be responsible for growing Open Text’s various support business units and building a consulting partner network to extend the reach of the company’s professional services team.

Rounding out the appointments, Leonie Cusack joins the vendor as senior field marketing manager for Asia Pacific. Along with building brand awareness, Cusak will be responsible for managing alliance and partner marketing in collaboration with the A/NZ regional sales team.

The appointments are all at Open Text's Sydney headquarters and bring the company's A/NZ staff to 40.

Open Text provides record and content management systems to enterprise customers designed to assist with efficiency and compliance around capturing and preserving corporate data.