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Aggressive repositioning and channel enablement after spin-off from Dell

Aggressive repositioning and channel enablement after spin-off from Dell

Enterprise SecurityEuropePartners Programme
Shahnawaz Sheikh is the Sales and Channel Director at SonicWall for Middle East, Africa excluding South Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

2017: YEAR IN REVIEW

Since splitting from Dell in November 2016, SonicWall has achieved several key milestones and has set a record for the most number of products launched in the history of the company. SonicWall released a new partner programme, a series of channel trainings, sales and technical certifications, multi-engine sandboxing technology, email security on multi-deployment platforms, hardware, virtual and cloud services.

The number of registered SecureFirst channel partners reached 10,000 in 150 days since SonicWall became an independent company with 20% of partners new to SonicWall. The SonicWall University was launched that enables partners to address the skills gap facing small and medium-size businesses. The vendor introduced global marketing programs to enable channel partners to address key new cyber threats including ransomware, encrypted communications and email threats.

More recently, SonicWall announced the launch of a new lineup of professional security services to help customers implement and operate security solutions that protect them from relentless cyberattacks. The new professional security services, distributed by SonicWall’s new Partner Enabled Services Program, are designed and delivered in partnership with SonicWall’s extensive network of channel partners.

In the last 12 months, there have been tremendous efforts put on enabling channel partners across Middle East, Turkey and Eastern Europe. Each quarter there were one or more sales training sessions to enable partners on product positioning and consultative selling techniques. Partners were trained and enabled on comparative differentiators, unique selling points, business tools for partner oportal, usage of marketing collaterals, deal registration.

Additionally, equipping partners with tools like Annual Threat Report gave the partners insight on latest threats and security challenges that the customers are facing and helped them understand the solution approach according to the customer’s pain points on today’s threat challenges. Enablement, support and lead gen initiatives helped cement the relationship with channel partners who saw profitability and commitment to work together and be successful together.

SonicWall has always strived to take complexity out of products at the engineering level and has brought products and solutions that are simple to deploy and manage. This fact made us popular with IT departments for large and small organizations. SonicWall, a 100% channel company, right from its inception delivers a clear message of been channel friendly company with reseller’s willingness to invest behind SonicWall brand for a strong, meaningful and profitable partnership.

Throughout the years, SonicWall has been known to provide network security solutions that offer excellent ease of use at cost-effective prices. Hearing of some limited IT budgets in certain markets, SonicWall solutions were able to gain market share by not just being cost effective but ensuring clients a guaranteed ROI, through lower renewal costs, for three to five years.

Key takeaways

  • Launch of a new lineup of professional security services to help customers implement and operate security solutions
  • New professional security services to be distributed by SonicWall’s new Partner Enabled Services Programme
  • New professional security services designed and delivered in partnership with SonicWall’s extensive network of channel partners
  • Tremendous efforts put on enabling channel partners across Middle East, Turkey and Eastern Europe
  • Partners trained and enabled on comparative differentiators, unique selling points, business tools for partner portal, usage of marketing collaterals, deal registration
  • Equipping partners with tools like Annual Threat Report gave the partners insight on latest threats and security challenges that the customers are facing
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