How do you get about 100 busy partners to come together for a full week of training? Make sure you offer dynamic and relevant workshops—and hold the event in Rome!

Viavi’s Velocity partner program leadership and team were thrilled with the turnout and enthusiasm during the entire training session that took place in Rome, January 25 – 29. The EMEA Velocity Partner Training empowered our partners with the best possible knowledge and skills to help them push their own boundaries in sales, technology, and marketing. Some of the most talked-about items on the agenda were:

  • A sales course on Leveraging the Viavi Story and Portfolio to address the biggest challenges faced by customers and prospects from sales guru Mark S A Smith
  • An interactive Marketing Appreciation Workshop by Jeff Stoltman, the Viavi global channel marketing lead
  • In-depth and detailed product-specific trainings from various Viavi product managers

The partners were not shy with expressing their positive feedback about this event as many saw it grow from a day or two of technical training to this full week of training that included a wider spectrum of skills development; we heard many great comments about the diversity of the workshops offered. We also heard from some of our partners that weren’t able to attend our Global Sales University in Orlando that this was a great way for them to catch up on some of the training they missed there.

Here’s a more detailed look at what our partners experienced in Rome:

Monday morning was dedicated to the Wireless-track technical sessions where our solution consultants delivered market, sales, and technical training on our CellAdvisor and RANAdvisor portfolio. The afternoon was time for Jeff Stoltman’s marketing workshop on creating and implementing a marketing plan as well as an update on marketing development fund (MDF) benefits and how to access MDFs from within our new Velocity partner portal.

EMEA Rome - Jeff Marketing

EMEA Rome - receptionOn Tuesday, the focus was on the Fiber-track technical sessions where partners could receive hands-on training on key Viavi solutions including ONMSi, SmartOTDR, and more. Tuesday wrapped up with a Velocity reception, where partners had the opportunity to discuss directly with the Viavi channel team about any number of topics including channel strategies and the recently-launched Velocity Partner Program.

Wednesday was Metro-Ethernet/Access day, where the majority of the sessions were dedicated to hands-on training on new solutions and features including WiFi Advisor. We also fit in the Executive-track session for working with our channel partner executives on business planning.

Wednesday evening, we went out on the town for a night tour of Rome and then an elegant dinner at the Archeologia restaurant, which is situated in the historic Rome catacombs!

On Thursday, partners received training on Viavi cable and video solutions. The more technically-inclined attendees had the opportunity to attend workshops covering Viavi’s fiber, metro-Ethernet, and access portfolio. The partner executives continued in the afternoon with a roundtable discussion on industry trends and thoughts on future partner meetings.

Friday wrapped up the week with technical sessions and workshops on enterprise solutions, network and application performance, and CATV.

We feel very lucky to have such a loyal and dedicated group of partners that we can openly share ideas with and hope everyone returned home with a greater knowledge of how to be even more successful in solving the challenges our joint customers and prospects face.

Here are some more happy faces and other photos from the wonderful week in Rome:

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