TeamViewer has appointed Telstra's former GM of channel distribution, Stephen Pech, as its head of APAC channel sales as part of a global push to grow via partners.
Pech joined the remote support vendor's Australian head office in Adelaide in June after almost seven years with Australia's largest telco, where his most recent role saw him manage Telstra's four distribution partners: ARIA Technologies, VExpress, Dicker Data and TBS Distribution.
Speaking to CRN at the Canalys conference in Macau, Pech revealed TeamViewer's ambitious growth plan for the local channel.
"Currently we do about 10 percent of our sales via partners, despite the fact we didn't have a partner program. Now that we have launched it, I am keen for that to be 40 percent of our business by 2018," Pech said.
TeamViewer has since signed 120 partners in Asia Pacific. The company has 200 million users worldwide, with more than 350,000 paying customers, and appointed its first channel director in Europe in May.
"I am focused on partners who can give us access to more customers and put a better quality and more complete solution on the table," Pech said.
"We obviously have a direct channel – you can buy it over the web – but what you can't buy over the web is a solution of which TeamViewer is a part and that is the core value proposition of a partner."
He stressed it was early days. "We are at the start of our partner program. We don't have deal registration or a partner portal or CRM access or advanced marketing functionality, but we do have discount levels, we do marketing funds, we do have not-for-resale, internal use demo test offers, and we do have a team that is being built out, and we have existing support mechanisms."
CRN is a media partner of Canalys. The journalist travelled to Macau as a guest of the conference organiser.
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