technologyreseller.co.uk 35 CYBER SECURITY broader discussions around cyber security and, increasingly, managed services. Ambidge says she has already noticed a change in the conversations Northamber has with WatchGuard partners as they look to build on the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform and WatchGuard Cloud by investing in their own resource and capabilities and adopting a different sales approach. “I am seeing more and more partners who before were only looking at one line within the WatchGuard portfolio now looking at the broader spectrum, investing time, investing marketing resource and technical resource to support a go-to- market sales engagement that is asking the broader questions of how are you securing your data and how are you making sure that your end users are as secure and supported as possible.” Ambidge adds that this more solutions- focused approach, which historically has been prevalent in the enterprise end user community, is now dominant in the mid- market where WatchGuard is very strong. “No longer do end users and resellers want to talk about products; they want to talk about business issues and solution drivers, and the creation of the unified platform and WatchGuard Cloud enables our partners to do this. It is delivering exactly what the market and customers need.” Vendor consolidation and managed services Jon-Mark Wilkinson, WatchGuard Sales Director UK/I, adds that as well as supporting a broader sales approach, WatchGuard addresses two clear trends in the channel community – vendor consolidation and managed security services. “A growing number of partners are considering consolidating their vendors and our Unified Security Platform, the streamlined management of network, endpoint, Wi-Fi and MFA in a single pane of glass, enables them to do that in a very cost-effective way. “The other big change from us is that over the last 12 to 24 months we have re-architected our unified security platform and introduced flexible billing options to enable our partners to deliver the managed security services that customers are demanding. They are looking for that trusted advisor, somebody that can deliver a consolidated solution for them, and the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform, of which WatchGuard Cloud is part, enables our partners to do that.” To find out more about the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform, please contact Northamber on 020 8296 7015 or
[email protected] The missing piece This month sees the integration of WatchGuard Technologies’ fourth and final technology pillar, Wi-Fi management, into WatchGuard Cloud, giving customers and MSPs the ability to manage all WatchGuard devices through the same management portal and a single pane of glass. Commenting on Wi-Fi in WatchGuard Cloud, Andrew Young, Senior Vice President of Product Management at WatchGuard, said: “The MSP market continues to grow at an accelerated pace, driving partners to look for centralised solutions that simplify deployment and management for customers while delivering the highest levels of security. Wi-Fi in WatchGuard Cloud gives partners the ability to layer on Wi-Fi-as-a- Service for customers and integrate it with our complete portfolio of security services like firewall, endpoint protection, MFA and more." He added: “Wi-Fi is an integral part of our Unified Security Platform, and now that it’s integrated with WatchGuard Cloud, it will help scale business growth for MSPs and further reduce cos ts.” WatchGuard.com Encryption – the ability to control BitLocker through the console, so you can easily implement full disk encryption; and the Advanced Reporting Tool (ART). “We can give you access to all the telemetry we capture in our EDR technology, which we call WatchGuard EDR/EPDR, so if you want to do your own research, your own querying, filters and alerts, whatever activity you want to identify, ART gives you access to all that information. With ART, there is a side- product called the SIEM Feeder, which enables anyone who has their own SIEM system to take our telemetry and feed it into their third-party product.” Opportunities for diversification Jennifer Ambidge, Cyber Security Practice Lead at Northamber, WatchGuard’s UK distribution partner, points out that at a time of significant M&A activity as security vendors seek to develop unified platforms of their own, the maturity of WatchGuard’s offering is a big attraction for channel partners, especially those looking to diversify their security offering. “From a distribution point of view, talking to our channel partners and looking at enabling net new partners, the fact that WatchGuard is already in a position to take out a unified message is really compelling. So many vendors go and put all these great solution technologies into their portfolios and then don’t do the one thing they need to, which is to unify everything as part of their go-to-market and make it accessible to partners, no matter what technology area they are coming from, or which technology pillar is the dominant one in any opportunity.” Now that WatchGuard has added wireless access point management into WatchGuard Cloud (see box copy), there are even more opportunities for cross-selling and for switching customer conversations from a focus on individual products to Jennifer Ambidge