EDITOR’S QUESTION
Evolving threats bring
evolving opportunities
Our programme’s objective is to help channel partners
address security gaps in the industry and create additional
revenue streams along the way says Alexander Foroozandé,
Channel Director, META at Infoblox.
Alexander Foroozandé, Channel Director,
META at Infoblox.
T
he persistence of the cybersecurity
threat landscape and its evolution
is the main driver for the network
security market in the region, which is
fast becoming the biggest opportunity for
the channel. Evolving threats mean an
evolving market, evolving opportunities,
evolving revenues and new margins for
channel partners. This is where channel
partners need to step in and seize the
opportunities by first educating their
customers and prospects about the newly
evolving network and IoT security threats,
and then offering an innovative solution in
order to mitigate, contain and remediate
both existing and evolving threats.
Today, IoT touches almost every aspect
of human life. In fact, IoT touches a vast
number of verticals and industries and is
expected to touch areas that today we have
yet to imagine.
With that, the channels that provide
solutions for a specific vertical or industry
can leverage IoT and its integration
to offer their clients unprecedented
intelligent and automated solutions,
especially when combined with Big
Data analytics and the IT infrastructure
required to collect the IoT data to provide
the desired service or information.
While an IoT device could be a
standalone gadget costing pennies that
requires no back end IT infrastructure,
many IoT devices are part of a sophisticated
and complex infrastructure and system that
needs to be there to provide the required
data for automated and orchestrated
intelligent decisions after a detailed analysis.
This is where the channels, along with
distributor and vendor partnerships, can
get involved in the relevant industry they
play in, by offering both the IoT devices
and what is needed to run, operate, secure
and maintain the ecosystem infrastructure
that connects these devices. This is where
ecosystem integration and partnerships
become a must.
Organisations are looking to build
software-defined datacentres (SDDCs)
to achieve benefits such as automation,
agility, scalability, flexibility and reduced
costs, but principally speed in provisioning
applications and services driving business
needs. Channel partners that want to
stand out in the SDDC space should have
a more consultative approach by first
identifying the business use cases. They
also need to be able to analyse the current
environment and understand business
and IT requirements to develop a suitable
roadmap for implementation.
Partner programme
The Infoblox Partner Program is centred
around three main pillars: enablement,
transparency and profitability.
Almost everything we do in the channel
A
s an automation
and security
company, give
us an overview of the
market opportunities
and partner programme
for regional channel
partners.
organisation is somehow linked to these
key values. Our programme’s objective is
to help channel partners address security
gaps in the industry and create additional
revenue streams along the way. Partner
programmes should be dynamic and stay
ahead of the trend. This is important so
we offer the tools necessary for partners
who choose to get enabled well in advance
and ready for delivering value to their
customers. The technology space is one of,
if not, the fastest changing industries and
so with the evolving threat landscape, it’s
important to keep your finger on the pulse
and change strategies accordingly.
Infoblox MEA conducts 100 per cent
of its business through its partners and
climbing up the programme’s value chain
has various benefits. We create multiple
points of contact with our top tier partners.
We carry out regular and personalised
enablement sessions, and quarterly account
planning sessions to ensure appropriate
engagement and protection. Most of our
business is created by our sales teams and
so the higher the partner is in the value
chain, the higher the likelihood is of our
sales teams passing those opportunities on
to them. We also have a tight relationship
with our top partners, so much so that
we’ve created enablement sessions around
cold/sales calls. Our sales teams visit
partners and spend half a day carrying out
live cold/sales calls to their customers to
create opportunities.
An important element of an ideal
partner programme is that it should have
a clear, defined vision and plan about
how to achieve it. And a recognition and
rewards programme, which is transparent
and achievable.
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