Orange Reshapes Its Partner Programme

Today, wireless carrier Orange announced a new Orange Partner Programme, which comes with a renewed and refreshed commitment to the Indirect channel, showing the company's focus on business and SME dealerships. The company will launch the new scheme in early April, being based on the growing momentum Orange gained in 2009.

The Orange Partner Programme includes the following tiers:
- Approved Orange Partner: Entry point for dealers. Distributors will be key to introducing and gaining accreditation for their key Orange dealers.
- Specialist Partner: Evolution of the existing Federated Dealers scheme. Federated dealers will now become Orange Specialist (Business) Partners, and operate renewed trading agreements, targets and objectives.
- Principal Partner: Highest tier status, reserved for Orange Specialist Partners committed to almost exclusive selling of Orange, and with key joint growth plans in place.

The carrier also notes that it plans on offering access to enhanced marketing, sales and service support to all partners. Moreover, dealers and distributors in the Orange Partner Programme will be provided with new products and tools, aimed at improving the communication on reporting and performance tracking.

Orange plans on expanding the range of products offered to its partners, and, starting with the third quarter of the year, Orange Partners in the Indirect channel will have the possibility to sell Managed VPNs to businesses. At the same time, they will also offer Orange Wirefree Extension, which enables users to access business applications safely and securely when outside the office.

The levels of revenue sharing are set to be increased as well, Orange says, in an attempt to encourage long term relationships with customers. Orange will reward partners that manage to introduce and retain the more valuable longer term customers, the carrier notes, adding that the exact details will be announced at a later date in the second quarter of the ongoing year.

Guillaume Van Gaver, vice president Sales and Loyalty Orange UK, said, “We have momentum, and we need to sustain this if we are to achieve our ambition of becoming the leading network partner in the Indirect Business channel. That’s why we are giving a renewed focus to the channel, and launching a new and improved Partner Programme which will deliver long term value for us all so that we can achieve our goals together.”