Kong Introduces Enhanced Partner Program Amid 10x Growth in Partner Ecosystem

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kong Inc., creators of the leading service connectivity platform, today introduced KongForce, its second-generation partner program that now includes more than 200 partners, a tenfold increase since 2019. During this same period, Kong's revenue through partners and the channel doubled year over year and is poised to accelerate in the next 12 months. Kong has established partnerships with leading technology and service providers including AWS, Infosys, Okta, Publicis Sapient, Red Hat and Wipro, among others.

"Kong has experienced truly phenomenal growth since 2019 in large part due to our vibrant partner ecosystem, which has surged 925% in three years," said Ken Kim, vice president of business development at Kong Inc. "With KongForce, we are thrilled to give back to our global partners by delivering additional resources and support so they can maximize their Kong business opportunity. Our goal is to become the recognized partner of choice for API and microservices connectivity in the cloud."

Global 5000 companies are accelerating the transition to becoming truly digital enterprises as they embrace hybrid and multi-cloud architectures that provide greater agility, resilience, and flexibility than monolithic architectures of the past. KongForce enables technology providers, value-added resellers (VARs), and systems integrators (SIs) to help their customers become digital-first organizations so they can remain competitive in today's environment by creating engaging new digital experiences and business models that are powered by APIs and microservices.

"Our KongForce program enables our partner ecosystem to address the connectivity challenges companies face as they undergo digital transformation and unleash new digital experiences and business models," said Kristian Györkös, VP of alliances at Kong Inc. "Kong's partners can future-proof their service offerings and enable their customers to stay at the forefront of digital innovation for years to come with cloud-native technology that works with any underlying infrastructure. This arms them with the speed, scale and performance needed in today's business environment."

How KongForce Drives Business Forward

Kong's partner program framework is modern, digital, and designed to support current market needs. KongForce will revolutionize the way Kong engages and supports each partner through an improved onboarding process, simplified legal procedure and access to more tailored resources to ignite marketing and sales activity in the field.

Partners gain access to the KongForce Partner Portal, a custom-built, all-inclusive platform that enables solution providers to collaborate with their customers to build new, modern architectures. The portal provides access to key tools and assets, including:

• Sales and technical certification
• Clear and favorable margins that strongly encourage partners to drive sourced business
• Sales and marketing support, including collateral, ebooks, videos and "campaign in a box" resources to name a few
• Market development funds program to help partners drive leads and build a healthy pipeline of business

Supporting Quotes:

"Kong and Amazon Web Services (AWS) provide the flexibility, scale, and security businesses need to accelerate their application deployments and become ever more innovative. Application connectivity and APIs are becoming increasingly important: we provide our customers a seamless experience while deploying Kong on AWS and help them accelerate their digital transformation."
–Sabina Joseph, general manager, Technology Partners at AWS

"I enjoy the overall user experience of the portal. It is clearly structured and easy to navigate, and relevant information is directly shown after logging into the dashboard area. We recognize the thought and investment that has gone into this and believe other partners will see it as well. This strengthens our belief that Kong has a strong commitment and focus towards its partners."  –Sven Bernhardt, chief architect at OPITZ CONSULTING

"Rising consumer expectations and disruptive technologies are changing the criteria for success in business. Now, corporations need to transform into a digital version of themselves and embrace a new technology stack that gives them speed, with safety at enterprise scale. We're excited about our partnership with Kong because it forms a cornerstone for the innovation-driven, highly composable businesses our clients are becoming."
–Ronnie Mitra, director of technology at Publicis Sapient

"Companies are embracing digital technologies to reinvent themselves, their culture, and their infrastructure so they can better adapt to fast-changing markets. We help enterprises around the world achieve this transformation at speed and scale while reducing complexity and risk. With partners like Kong, Wipro assembles the key building blocks to accelerate and simplify companies' transformation journey and empower them to focus on what matters."
–Hemantha Choudam, global practice head for digital business integration, Wipro

To learn more or join KongForce, please visit https://konghq.com/partners.

About Kong Inc.

Kong creates software and managed services that connect APIs and microservices natively across and within clouds, Kubernetes, data centers, and more using intelligent automation. Built on an open source core, Kong's service connectivity platform enables digital innovation by allowing organizations to reliably and securely manage the full lifecycle of APIs and services for modern architectures, including microservices, serverless and service mesh. By providing developer teams with unprecedented architectural freedom, Kong accelerates innovation cycles, increases productivity, and seamlessly bridges legacy and modern systems and applications. For more information about Kong, please visit https://konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter.

Media Contacts:      
Pauline Louie, Kong, 628-243-7512, [email protected] 
Jill Reed, Sift Communications for Kong, [email protected] 

SOURCE Kong Inc.