Helping Partners Stay Competitive for the Future

Key Takeaways

• The evolved NextWave Partner Program raises expectations while strengthening enablement, incentives and the Partner Development Fund to support partner growth and reinvestment.
• Levels and specializations are more closely aligned to next-generation security priorities, helping partners deepen expertise and making partner distinctions more meaningful for customers.
• These changes help create a more capable partner ecosystem, with deeper capabilities, greater alignment with customer needs, and a stronger foundation to support the future of security.

Cybersecurity partnerships are operating in a more demanding environment. As customers consolidate vendors, modernize security architectures and adopt artificial intelligence (AI) across the enterprise, they’re placing greater expectations on partners to help guide decisions across network, cloud and security operations. They also want clearer evidence that their selected partners have invested in growing the skills and expertise needed to support more integrated and fast-changing security priorities.

The Palo Alto Networks NextWave Partner Program has evolved to help partners meet these heightened expectations. As security delivery becomes broader and more strategic, customers are placing more weight on what a partner’s credentials actually represent. That’s why stronger performance and enablement requirements are part of our reimagined program. The new requirements help partners better understand what they need to build real capability and advance within our program. They also give more substance to the designations customers see when choosing a partner.

Our objective was never simply to raise the standards for engagement in our program. It was to inspire partners at all levels – Registered, Innovator, Platinum and Diamond – to invest deliberately and continuously in learning, so they can deepen their proficiency and earn specializations that will help them stay competitive and build and deliver the future of security.

Why Requirements and Incentives Had to Evolve Together

Raising performance expectations was only part of the work in evolving the NextWave program. We also wanted to give our partners compelling reasons to invest in the capabilities Palo Alto Networks wants to see scale. That meant looking more closely at how standards, specializations and incentives fit together, and how we can help accelerate mutual success.

We are providing our partners with better access, better visibility and better support for learning and enablement. In turn, we are recognizing and rewarding partners for their efforts to develop and maintain the competency, capability and capacity needed to go to market successfully with Palo Alto Networks.

This approach, shaped largely by partner feedback, is designed to make incentives easier to access while still directing partner investment toward deeper specialization and next-gen security capabilities. Program levels and product specializations help define what partners need to do to grow within our program and to excel at selling, supporting or delivering Palo Alto Networks products and services.

The program’s Partner Development Fund adds another dimension to this evolved model. It gives all partners a more deliberate way to reinvest a portion of their earned incentives into the capabilities they need to stay competitive and innovate, including training, certification, workshops, demos and other strategic activities that help strengthen their team’s overall readiness over time. In that sense, the program is both rewarding current performance and driving mutual growth.

Training and Enablement that Move with the Market

As we continue to strengthen our partner program, Palo Alto Networks is refreshing courses, updating certification paths and redesigning training to better reflect the customer needs that partners are helping to address today, including emerging areas like AI security.

Notable improvements:

• Introduced more online, on-demand learning experiences across all products and across all roles, including sales, technical presales and post-sales professionals.
• Expanded access to lab environments for hands-on experiences, as well as access to perform demos for customers.
• Injected AI roleplay into learning experiences to help sales and presales teams improve their ability to educate customers about our products and services while addressing questions or concerns.
• Instituted a continuous education component that encourages partners to stay current with certifications and other program requirements, so they don’t need to be tested annually.

Our aim with these changes is to keep learning options relevant, practical and easier to engage in and apply in practice. We believe product and services training should help partners deepen expertise, validate skills and stay current as technologies, customer expectations and threats shift. It should also recognize the experience many professionals already bring to the table, with learning paths that are rigorous without being repetitive or unnecessarily burdensome.

Ultimately, the impact of providing more effective enablement for our partners (and outlining clear requirements for advanced specializations and total certified staff for specific partner paths) positively impacts the customer experience through more informed conversations, stronger design guidance and more consistent support across the entire security lifecycle.

A More Focused Program to Help Accelerate Next-Generation Security

Part of what makes the current evolution of the NextWave program so significant is its focus on helping partners build the bench strength they will need to stay competitive as security becomes more platform-driven, AI-influenced and interconnected across domains. The program also encourages bookings tied to next-generation security priorities, helping direct partner investment toward the areas customers are prioritizing most. That focus is especially visible in areas such as Prisma^® SASE, Cortex^® Cloud™ and Cortex, where customer demand and program priorities are increasingly aligned.

The benefits of that alignment extend beyond the partner organization. Customers gain access to partners that are better prepared to support more connected security strategies without adding unnecessary complexity. They can work with partners that are building expertise around the technologies and use cases becoming more central to modern enterprise security programs.

This kind of alignment also strengthens the broader ecosystem. It creates a clearer connection between customer needs, partner capabilities and Palo Alto Networks platform strategy. It’s the value exchange in cybersecurity in action: Ongoing investment in knowledge, skills and services that helps partners grow while giving customers faster time-to-value realization.

What Stronger Program Requirements Mean for Customers

For customers, stronger requirements for our Nextwave program can make partner distinctions more meaningful. A specialization or program level should point to something real, such as training completed, certifications maintained and expertise developed. While those accomplishments don’t guarantee security outcomes, they do provide evidence that a partner has built the depth needed to support more complex environments.

Partner distinctions are also reinforced through an active compliance framework rather than treated as a one-time achievement. Partners have ongoing visibility into their progress and can be recognized immediately throughout the year as they meet requirements. Reviews take place on a defined cycle, and status changes are subject to oversight. Taken together, these elements add credibility to the designations customers see and give them more weight in the partner selection process.

This becomes increasingly important as customers look for security partners that can do more than support a single transaction or product decision. Many are seeking guidance at the architecture stage and during implementation, and expecting continuity as IT environments evolve and new risks emerge. It also raises the level of scrutiny that partner selection deserves:

• Is a partner specialized in the areas most relevant to the customer’s priorities?
• Do they have the certifications and technical expertise required to support the solutions being considered?
• Can they provide the level of guidance, implementation support and ongoing engagement the relationship will require over time?

In a fast-moving security market, questions like these can help customers make more informed decisions about which partners are best equipped to deliver long-term value.

What Partners Should Do Now

Now that we’ve introduced our new program requirements, partners should take stock of whether their certifications, specializations and go-to-market priorities are aligned to where customer demand and the future of security are headed. Steps partners can take:

• Evaluate your current book of business: Consider where you may be missing growth opportunities because the right specializations aren’t yet in place. Those gaps can affect both business momentum and the ability to earn incentives.
• Reflect on the current direction of your practice: Which customer conversations are signaling the need for deeper expertise? Which areas of next-generation security are becoming more central to your future? These questions can help guide your next investments by clarifying where your practice needs to build more depth sooner rather than later.
• Review certifications and specializations with growth in mind: Look at where new specializations could open the door to additional incentives and stronger alignment with customer demand, while ensuring your team’s existing certifications and specializations remain on track for the next compliance cycle.

Partners that take the time now to assess our new requirements and create a plan to meet them will be better positioned to advance within and benefit from our partner program, while developing the capabilities needed to help build the future of security.

Partners with a designated Palo Alto Networks Channel Business Manager can get detailed data and analysis now on their progress and performance in the Nextwave program, including the status of their certifications and which team members have engaged in training, demos and more. In the second half of 2026, we plan to make the same dashboard capabilities and insights directly available to all partners, so they can understand exactly what they need to do to excel in our program. These red-yellow-green dashboards are simple but powerful tools, and we are eager to put them in our partners’ hands soon.

Visit the NextWave Partner Portal to learn more.