Data Quality vendor Naveego launches first partner program

Master data management services opportunities are part and parcel of Naveego’s solution, and the company is also offering high margins through the new Naveego Partner Success Program.

Derek Smith, Naveego’s cofounder and CEO

Cloud-based Data Quality Solutions vendor Naveego has unveiled the Naveego Partner Success Program, with its focus being on master data management solutions. Naveego’s best partners have been systems integrators, service providers and consultants, and they are looking to build out a select channel of partners tightly aligned with them.

Traverse City, MI-based Naveego developed from 2012-2013 as part of Safety Net, a Michigan MSP. They were spun out in December 2014, with Safety Net remaining a strategic partner, and procured VC funding in May of this year. Naveego’s solution detects and eliminates data quality issues across systems, and between cloud and on-prem deployments, and does Master Data Management [MDM] on a Data Quality Platform. The partner program is really focused on partners who use the data quality in more complex MDM solutions.

“Data quality is an important to first step to MDM,” said Derek Smith, Naveego’s cofounder and CEO. “MDM, which is aligning and syncing of data, has the goal of getting to the single version of the truth. We partner with firms who do data quality as a first step, as a lot of issues uncovered by data quality feed into the MDM story. These services firms are highly verticalized, so they can bring that knowledge of services, since we are a product company. We have been getting a lot of traction in oil and gas in particular.”

Smith said these types of project are typically very services-intensive.

“A couple partners recently closed deals of more than $1,000,000, with most of that being services,” he said. “The end customer doesn’t go looking for an MDM solution. They go to partners and ask them to help solve a problem. We have an oil and gas partner, StoneBridge, who can reduce deployment times by about six months to the six to nine-month range. These services partnerships are critical to us.”

This is Naveego’s first channel program.

Sean Cavanaugh, Naveego’s Director of Sales

“We have been working closely with seven partners over the last year, and are in the process to onboard another dozen,” said Sean Cavanaugh, Naveego’s Director of Sales. “It was time to formalize the program, which we did in collaboration with our existing partners.”

The objective of the Naveego Partner Success Program is to expand the number of partners, while still keeping the program small enough to be able to work closely with them.

“Our sweet spot a couple years down the road would be in the 50-75 partner range,” Cavanaugh said. “We will be selective in the process. We don’t want to bring on partners just for the sake of brand awareness.  We want them all to be dedicated and focusing on Naveego.”

Systems integrators, service providers and consultants are the most attractive partners for Naveego.

“We are not opposed to VARs but those three groups have had the most traction,” Cavanaugh said. “Once they get into implementing and developing MDM deployment, it is easy for them to create a template around us so it is easy to replicate the solution.”

The Naveego Partner Success Program itself is fairly straightforward. It is a single tier program, although Naveego may revisit that in the future, as the program expands.

“We have a dedicated partner team with executive sponsorship to get partners technical ready, sales ready and marketing ready,” Cavanaugh said. Training is required, and is a combination of face-to-face and videos.

Enablement tools include typical table stakes such as MDF funds and deal registration.

“Our margins are strong, with an average of 35 per cent, which is very good for a SaaS company,” Cavanaugh said. “It creates a good recurring revenue, and the services opportunities are lucrative. Management is also very easy. It’s all through a portal which is an effective one-stop shop.”