REGIONAL CHANNELS
STARLINK
Segmenting security solutions
An innovative cross matrix of solutions has helped Starlink stay ahead of business
challenges and capitalise on opportunities along with its partners.
D
espite the geo-political
challenges and the sharp nodal
changes in technology platforms
and adoption, Starlink, a security value
added distributor has been able to grow
at 50% and meet its QoQ targets. The
continuing conflict in Yemen has affected
the market out of Saudi Arabia. The rise
in local currency to dollar exchange rates
has affected transfers out of South Africa
and Egypt. And the overall liquidity has
been depressed with the drop in oil prices.
The security landscape has also been
increasing in terms of its challenges.
Remarks Avinash Advani, SVP Strategic
Alliances and International Markets
at StarLink, “The IT security threat
landscape has been challenging in terms
of the frequency and type of cyberattacks,
which have been increasing steadily.”
Starlink has taken a number of initiatives
to capitalise on the changing dynamics of
technology platforms. These include:
• Cloud: The distributor has built a data
centre and business unit around this
platform
• Converged infrastructure: The
distributor has included hyperconvergence as part of its data centre
and cloud business unit
• Software defined anything: The
distributor will be investing in this area
around security and networking
• Security: This is an ongoing initiative
since it is the core competency of the
distributor over the last eleven years
• IoT: This is a key industry trend and
the distributor has started adapting its
solutions to meet the opportunity
As Starlink has adapted its product portfolio
to the changing technology landscape, it
Avinash Advani, SVP Strategic Alliances and
International Markets at StarLink
has also been helping its channel partners
to do same. Says Advani, “Progressively the
position on channel partners being able to
leverage on the disruption around business
and digital transformation, is getting better
and better.”
The Starlink solution portfolio looks
at vendor products in an integrated
fashion and not as point products. The
distributor is focused on the following
vertical market segments including
oil and gas, telecommunications,
government, and banking. The overall
platform drivers in the market are cloud,
mobile, incident response, behavioural
analytics, and Internet of Things. The
distributor believes CIOs are challenged
when they approach security with the
requirement of reducing vulnerabilities
by implementing point products.
Point products do not provide an
integrated picture of the organisational
threat landscape. They often do not
provide the context of the results, they
tend to operate in silos, they add to the
solution complexity and manageability
for security professionals and overall add
to the noise level. It has been Starlink’s
initiative to enable its channel partners to
map their solutions along the lines of the
distributor’s solution portfolio.
“Partners are realising that margins are
eroding around commoditised products
and the only way to stay in business is
to develop service practices or focus on
technologies driving key trends in the
industry,” explains Advani.
Starlink categories its vendor partners
into distinct areas of security operation
and end user benefits. These include
data centre and cloud, data governance,
risk analytics, threat protection, secure
mobility, incident response, and
operational intelligence.
For data centre and cloud, vendor
partners include Ixia, Riverbed, Nutanix,
Infoblox. For data governance, vendor
partners include Dell Security, IBM
Security, Titus, Venafi. For risk analytics,
vendor partners include Tripwire, Blue
Coat, Arbor Networks, Veracode, Core
Security. For threat protection, vendor
partners include Gemalto, Palo Alto,
Trend Micro, Forcepoint.
For mobility, vendor partners include
Ipswitch, MobileIron, Ironkey, Airpatrol.
For incident response, vendor partners
include Fireeye, DarkTrace, Hexis
Cyber Solutions, Attivo Networks.
For operational intelligence vendor
partners include Splunk. Other vendors
include Recorded Feature, Link
Shadow, Cylance, SafeNet, Websense,
LogRhythm, ForeScount.
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