Keeping its focus around securing its customer community with next generation-ready security solutions around end point, network, gateway, datacenter and SaaS – F-Secure is betting big on its engagement with channel community to drive further growth.
Nishant Sharma, National Head, Channels (India & SAARC), F-Secure speaks with Zia Askari from ChaannelDrive.in about the company’s current focus and its future plans for India.
What are the key priorities for F secure today? How important is the channel community for the company?
The cyber security landscape is changing every day. We now literally have 81 cyber-attacks per minute and therefore our priority was and remains centered around our customers protection from a changing landscape perspective. Our conversations with CIO and CISO suggest that attacks are getting more sophisticated and the problem is not going away. Simple and effective solutions are needed in a multi-layer way to secure the enterprise and SMB which we are trying to fulfill. FS priority is to offer world class end point, network, gateway, datacenter and SaaS solutions to the Indian market today.
F-Secure is a 100% channel focus company. Our channel partners are our customer facing sales team. We have marketing tools by which we want to enhance our channel experience, we run a partner portal, run product roadmap sessions, enable our partners and help develop the market for them by doing joint market development activity with them.
Please share the number of partners & distributors that F Secure works with in India? What is the channel strategy of F-Secure for the year 2015? Please name some of the best performing channel partners in India?
We have 125 active partners across the country who work closely with us and who are engaged with us on regular basis. Our Channel team also has a separate mandate to build another 200 partners in next 12 months who will be on-boarded solely based on their ability to understand the security landscape.
We’re doing lot of investment in terms of training our partners including hands-on technical trainings, doing market investment with them for customers and joint lead generation activity. Our focus is on building specific partner for specific solutions and verticals over the long term.
Any plans of increasing number of partners & distributors in the country? Any specific ones that you’re in talks with?
We had planned to double the number of our active partners in 2015 and we already have over achieved this target. As far as distributors are concerned, during the year we appointed RAH Infotech Pvt. Ltd. as our National Distributor to drive SMB market and recently we also appointed Datasoft Network Solutions as our sub-distributor for Mumbai region for distribution of SMB line of products in the region. There are no plans to add any more distributors.
How do you plan to better engage with channel community in India? How about your relations with SIs and SPs in India?
Being a channel focused company, we do lot of activities which are channel centric. Sales & technical enablement through regular trainings, boot camps, etc. joint marketing events with key partners, running Incentive schemes for partners as well their sales teams are just to name a few. F-Secure Partner Program offers all that our partners need to stay ahead of the competition and do a profitable business with us.
F-Secure product portfolio includes comprehensive range of award-winning security solutions ranging from endpoint to gateway and cloud and these offer best value to small and mid-size enterprise. Through regular trainings we ensure that our partners are fully trained on our solutions and are able to handle POCs, installations and first level support. We also ensure that they make good margins on each of the deal.
We’re also focusing on partnering with SIs and SPs. We already have engaged with couple of good partners and are working with them on some big/turnkey projects across verticals.
What are some of the major challenges in Security Market and its acceptance at partner level?
The buzz words keep coming in the security industry, both partners and customer need validation and first early success and showcase of the technology. The partners play a very imp role along with the OEM to educate the market and do the first few POC well. More and More Customers want to see the ROI of the existing investments before making fresh commitments to new technology and security needs. Of course new concepts like BYOD, Software as a Service, Regulatory demands can suddenly change the industry but constant efforts are needed by all stakeholders to get wider adoption in the industry.
What is the relevance of channel today when the online commerce plays such an important role?
No security solution can provide you 100% safeguard and more so when you’re not defining the policies correctly, patching the OS/software regularly. New threats keep coming and challenge the security solutions. Companies need to update their security posture as a continuous process to stay safe.
Security is a specialized area and a channel partner with security in focus plays a crucial role along with the security vendor in educating customers on the changing threat landscape and emerging threats and to suggest them the right security solution. A channel partner is the first point of contact for a customer in case of any technical support/query and he works as an important link between the customer and the security vendor.
Are you looking at partnering channels at Tier 2, 3 & 4 levels? What is the adoption & awareness rate there?
Currently our focus is to strengthen our existing channel base and train them fully in all aspects. Having said that, Tier-2 partner recruitment is also on the agenda and we plan to do multi city events to reach out to potential partners.
Internet accessibility has reached to even remote areas and smartphone usage and online transactions are touching every life. The ambitious Digital India project launched by the govt. will further boost this growth which opens up huge opportunity for the security market even in smaller cities. Channel partners who have security as focus are getting ready to tap those opportunities.
