Toni El Inati – RVP Sales, META & CEE, Barracuda Networks, explains how Barracuda Networks is helping channel partners leverage cybersecurity innovation in 2021.
Cybersecurity needs for customers are quickly evolving due to the rapid adoption of digitalisation brought on by the current unprecedented situation. Channel partners need to be on the lookout for technologies that will help them align with these requirements and deliver on their customers’ demands. Partners should focus on ‘solution-selling’ as it is the key to add value for customers since they require customised offerings now that can keep their systems running as well as enhance their resiliency.
Customers will be looking for support from partners to make informed decisions on the effectiveness of investments in new technologies and how it can contribute to Business Continuity plans and objectives.
As a vendor, our focus is to invest in bringing more solutions into our portfolio this year to cater to the current demand and to enable our partners in such a way that they are confident to take these solutions to the market and build value alongside complementary technologies. Our goal is also to foster and strengthen our channel relationships to show a unified front and improve engagement with our customers.
One of the areas of cybersecurity we believe offers particularly attractive prospects for the channel is that of secure access. Remote work is here to stay, cloud migrations are accelerating and traditional corporate perimeters have disappeared. Against this backdrop, it is essential for security teams to be able to enforce security and access policies and achieve seamless connectivity without compromising employee productivity. Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) offers the solution to enabling secure, reliable and fast access to cloud or on-premises applications and workloads from any device and location. At Barracuda, through our recent acquisition of Fyde, we now provide our partners with an industry-leading Barracuda CloudGen Access, an industry-leading ZTNA solution.
Finally, at a point where organisations are looking to optimise their existing investments, the channel can play a lead role in helping businesses enhance the value of the cybersecurity solutions they have already deployed. We notice that even when organisations utilise best of breed cybersecurity solutions, they often fail to realise the full potential of their investments due to incorrect setup and configuration. Consider email security as an example – we often see that sender authentication methods like SPF, DKIM and DMARC have been incorrectly setup. Channel partners can enhance their value proposition by helping customers not only in selecting the right solutions, but correctly implementing and configuring these in a comprehensive framework.