Oscar Chavez-Arrieta, SonicWall LATAM Executive Vice-President, tells us about the company’s commitment to channel partners, the opening of a support center in Costa Rica and why Latin America is a market with incredible potential.
Can you give us an overview of your company’s current focus in the Latin American IT landscape?
SonicWall is a company committed to excellence in cybersecurity, focusing on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) and mid-market sectors. We offer a broad range of products for the corporate segment. Our global expansion is strategically designed to grow specifically in the SMB/MM sectors; thanks to this focus, Latin America becomes an extremely attractive market with the highest potential for percentage growth worldwide.
According to Canalys analysts, 72.3% of companies in Latin America have fewer than 500 employees, compared to 49.7% in the US, 67.1% in EMEA, and 64.2% in APJ, which strategically justifies SonicWall’s substantial investment in Latin America.
At the same time, Latin America is currently the region migrating most slowly towards the consolidation of cybersecurity ‘purchasing’ and ‘management’. This is compounded by the fact that most global security brands are looking to position their services in the high-end corporate sector. While this is valid, it distances SMBs from the new generation of effective cybersecurity.
What are the key technologies you’re investing in right now, and why do you think they are important for the industry?
We are strategically investing in cloud technology, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and advanced firewall technologies. These areas are crucial, as AI-driven threat detection has proven to
improve threat identification by up to 35%. Our goal is to offer sophisticated and user-friendly solutions that align with the industry’s move towards more integrated and intelligent cybersecurity systems.
Specifically, in Latin America, we will begin to position our new vision of what it means to be a true security service provider, considering the rapid integration of our acquisitions such as Solution Granted, our new MDR engine and Banyan Security, which brings us even closer to the ‘device’ and a solid SASE strategy with SD-WAN that maintains continuous communication with the ‘perimeter’.
From a technical standpoint, this year we will hear a lot from SonicWall about these three fundamental pillars in the development of our business partners, a tropicalization of the global message to the reality of Latin America, developed and led by Juan Alejandro Aguirre, the new Director of Engineering for Latin America:
1. Consolidation and simplification towards the platform: An offering that helps the partner and the new service provider consolidate their purchase from more than 50 brands to basically a couple of platforms that do not compete with the services they offer and meet the demands of their end-customers.
2. Competence against threats:
- Business transformation capability, turning you into the CISO of your SMB client.
- Enable threat prediction, supported and backed by the SonicWall platform.
- Helping organizations create better products and services with a new differential value: Digital Trust.
3. Omnipresent security: Today, with SonicWall/Banyan, we approach the endpoint, communicate better SD-WAN with the perimeter, and support the partner’s SOC service offering with MDR. This is security everywhere.
What strategies are you employing to maintain a competitive edge in the fast-paced Latin American market?
SonicWall, being a 100% partner-oriented company, is in the midst of an aggressive transformation called Outside-In, where the partner’s voice is a priority in defining our product roadmap and
marketing plans. We are undergoing a complete transformation of our product strategy and Go To Market, prioritizing the partner and its services.
Globally, 95% of cybersecurity sales are made through the partner. In Latin America, this number is very similar. However, work behavior, influenced by the ‘account management’ obsession of traditional brands and those seeking to generate more profit in their operations, has made the partner’s evolution into a security service provider extremely slow in our region.
To give you an idea, in cybersecurity services alone – not products – the world will grow from US$144 billion to US$253 billion in just services provided by the partner to their clients in the next four years, representing a 15% CAGR.
In Latin America, this percentage will almost double year after year, opening a window of opportunities that SonicWall is entrusting 100% to the partner.
What does this mean? The role of the Latin American transactional partner evolves into a ‘multi-product’ security service provider, where security reaches end-customers as a brand-agnostic service chosen by the new service provider.
Seeing this, the already established service providers are increasingly focusing on developing simple, differentiated and accessible solutions for the SMB, moving away from aggressive security providers that seek to sell their own services.
The channel partners are seeking loyalty and transparency in the brands they use. This is where SonicWall and its partners differ, offering real training so the partner can compete in being a very responsible platform provider for the efficiency of its service to its clients, fully backed – and never threatened – by SonicWall.
What challenges do you foresee in the IT industry, particularly concerning channel partnerships in Latin America?
The IT industry, especially in Latin America, faces challenges such as rapidly evolving technology and regulatory compliance. The MSSP market, in particular, is addressing these issues head-on, but there is a growing need for trained cybersecurity professionals. And here lies the opportunity for the new MSSP, especially in the SMB. Allowing the SMB CEO to focus away from the anxiety caused by cybersecurity threats and hand over this responsibility to their business partner, their security consultant.
How does your company approach training and upskilling channel partners?
We are 100% committed to equipping our partners with the latest skills and knowledge, ensuring they stay at the forefront in this rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. For this, we have opened a 24/7 local language support center in Costa Rica and have created a new partner program that encourages complete training of our partners in our solutions, allowing them to take responsibility for their own offering, always feeling close to our brand.
What advice would you give to companies looking to become a channel partner with your organization?
What do we seek in our historical partners, our distributors, and our new allies? To maximize our joint investment, creating something that has characterized my entire team in the region in their previous experiences: working only with the partner and not through it. For this, we have defined three commercial pillars that are our guidelines:
1. Loyalty: Involves creating a solid relationship that fosters sustained commitment, respect, collaboration and commitment. Train our partners to become trusted ambassadors of SonicWall and reliable advisors to their clients. We support the partners’ experience by empowering them and not competing with them. Leading by example.
2. Simplification: Streamline processes, tools and interactions to make collaboration and sales more efficient. Offer a solid cybersecurity portfolio, unifying innovative solutions on a single platform designed to provide partners and clients with the best-in-class protection.
3. Self-sufficiency: Our goal is to equip our partners with the knowledge and resources necessary to independently address changes in customer dynamics and cybersecurity.
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