As our expansion
plans unravel over
the next 12-36
months, newer
regions will begin
to offer more
opportunities.
some remote engagements and operate
reactively to opportunities that we may
receive. So, at this juncture, yes, the
approach is different whereby there is no
on-the-ground coverage, nor a proactive
market development strategy. This will
change over the next couple of years once
we initiate our investments into Africa as a
part of our expansion. training is complete, we then ensure that
the partner’s reps shadow Spire’s sales and
technical resources respectively during the
sales lifecycle.
After a sale, Spire provides
certified professional services, training
and support to the partner for resale, until
the partner has developed the required
expertise itself.
How do your partners deliver Spire
Solutions services to end-users? What are the latest trends you see
emerging across the channel?
The majority of Spire’s technologies are
delivered today by partners to end-users via
the traditional channel resale methodology.
The partners that choose to invest in
services capabilities then also provide
professional services and support, although
many do count on Spire to provide these
services on their behalf. A few partners
provide managed services to end-users using
Spire’s products. As the journey to the cloud accelerates and
matures, cloud is becoming more pervasive
and prolific.
Simultaneously, security vendors are
evolving their offerings and licensing models
accordingly to be subscription-based.
These dynamics are causing a paradigm
shift in the channel as many make the
transition to MSPs, while other more
traditional partners start offering forms of
managed services such as MDR (Managed
Detection and Response).
Then there are newer partners that
are ‘born in the cloud’ and provide
security offerings that are designed for
cloud delivery.
Breach response is also an area that is
moving away from the channel and residing
with vendors that are leaders in the incident
response space who are investing heavily in
their services offerings and attaching them
to their products.
End-users seem to prefer engaging
directly with a vendor after an incident
anyway. Other trends that are being
observed in the security channel are: the
emergence of interest in IoT security (which
includes ICS/SCADA security) and ML/
AI, which every vendor seems to now be
incorporating into their technology roadmap
and messaging.
How do you ensure channel
partners flourish in a highly
competitive market?
Spire Solutions is reputed for bringing best-
of-breed and bleeding-edge cybersecurity
technologies to the market that address
customers’ business challenges today.
These next-generation products enable
channel partners to differentiate
themselves and achieve higher levels of
profitability. Spire also invests in business
development to evangelise the technology,
educate the market and create awareness,
all of which lead to the creation of new
pipeline opportunities that are passed to
channel partners.
How does Spire Solutions prepare
partners to take their solutions out
into the market?
We follow the ‘teach them to fish’ approach.
In the early days of engaging with a partner
on a new solution and once a business plan
has been put into place, Spire supports the
partner end-to-end with pipeline generation
including joint-marketing and opportunity
creation activities, while initiating sales and
pre-sales training for its team. After the
60
Which regions do you see offering
the most opportunities for Spire
Solutions?
In 2019, primarily the Middle East. As our
expansion plans unravel over the next 12–36
months, newer regions will begin to offer
more opportunities.