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BUSINESS BRIEFING technologyreseller.co.uk 29 sales support services,” explains Simon Bickers. “We provide first line telephone support for end customers. We resolve and own the majority of the IAM support cases that are raised on to us, which means our partners’ customers are serviced quickly and effectively if they ever need support. We are able to deliver professional services; we are able to deliver training. Overall, we make it easy for net new Thales customers and partners to on-board, sell and use the solution. We also actively encourage and make it commercially viable for new partners to be trained so that they can deliver their own Thales partner services to increase margins and their stickiness with us, Thales and end user customers.” There is also a dedicated partner onboarding programme to get partners up and running in identity and access management. Called Going for Gold, it is designed to encourage new and existing partners to work closely with Exclusive Networks UK to successfully launch their Thales IAM business. “We provide them with enablement, whether that’s technical, sales or marketing. They give us a commitment that they will invest time and some effort into a business plan, which we shape and execute together. We have all the resource and skills to assist them every step of the way and they are rewarded with Gold partner margins and a host of other benefits to kickstart their business. It’s tried and tested and it works. We have partners who have come onto the program with no experience in selling IAM solutions and by following the plan and doing some lead generation with us they have won business in a short period of time, made good margin and gained new customer relationships that they have then built on. We make it very easy for partners to launch their Thales business.” Education programme Simon Bickers adds that one of Exclusive Networks UK’s plans this year is to introduce a data protection evangelisation programme and to bring more partners into the Thales partner programme. “We will be looking to go into existing Thales partners and new ones and almost demystify the data protection portfolio, where we need to. Due to Thales’ acquisitions over the years, there are a lot of legacy products, migration paths and different naming conventions, and there will inevitably be some products that partners don’t know Thales have available to them. “There is a lot to talk to partners about and introduce partners to. For example, many won’t know about Thales’ Data Discovery and Classification solution, the cloud-based Data Protection on Demand services or how the CipherTrust Data Security platform can simplify their customers’ data security operations. “It is our job to go into the channel and make some noise about what Thales have in their portfolio today, why they are being so successful with it, why end users will want to hear about it and how that will help our partners stand out from the competition and win more business.” To find out more about the Thales IAM and data protection solutions and how Exclusive Networks UK can help you exploit opportunities in these growing areas, please email [email protected] , call 0845 521 7217 or visit https://www.exclusive-networks.com/ vendors/thales motion, efficiently controls and secures the encryption keys within hardware security modules, and monitors access to that data and the keys. Growing demand Simon Bickers says that demand across both product lines increased by about 30% in 2020 and he expects growth to remain strong in 2021, presenting channel partners with a large addressable market and plenty of sales opportunities. “We saw a spike in demand for Thales’ IAM solutions during CoVID because of the demand for secure remote working. Thales were winning because their solution was quick to deploy and easier to use; the licensing scheme was transparent, with no hidden surprises, so sign off processes were accelerated; and, due to what is included with the user licences, they have a lower TCO compared to many competitor solutions. “Then, on the data protection side, we continued to see growth due to the portfolio being able to positively address a broad range of uses cases and needs, such as more resilient, cost-effective and less complex cloud and data security; enterprise and multi-cloud key management; discovery and classification of diverse data types across the whole IT infrastructure; and evolving compliance mandates, to name a few.” Partner support As Thales’ go-to UK distributor, Exclusive Networks UK provides valuable support to help channel partners profit from such opportunities, including a dedicated vendor team of Thales product sales specialists, dedicated marketing resources, presales and professional service consultants and a team of 28 support engineers in their UK support centre. “On the IAM side, Exclusive Networks UK have a mature set of pre- and post-