Monday Morning Impact – December 23

Veeam Updates Accredited Services Partner Program

Veeam Software has announced the launch of its enhanced Veeam Accredited Services Partner (VASP) program to further support service delivery of the Swiss company’s backup solutions. The new program restructures the Veeam professional services department to a channel alignment model, dedicating internal resources exclusively to VASP members.

“To remain competitive, leaders need qualified professionals to implement and manage the technologies that will enable them to transform into more intelligent businesses,” said Danny Allan, Vice President of Product Strategy at Veeam. “With these enhanced capabilities to our partner ecosystem, partners are equipped with the tools to shape and control the solution transaction and customer journey.”

The new program promises new business and revenue opportunities, resources that enable partner sales teams to win larger, more complex deals, deeper integration, and enhanced channel training and skillsets. New tools include a new partner portal as well as sizing/scaling tools and services kits.

Channel Impact^®
The updated program takes a refreshed look at service partners with an eye towards differentiated offerings and customer success.

Exclusive Networks Launches MSSP Platform

Paris-based Exclusive Networks has unveiled ‘MSSD’, its platform for delivering a suite of channel-delivered managed security services backed by 24/7 SOC facilities, ISO-certified service delivery and accredited engineers.

“As the cyber market evolves, MSSD is the logical step forward, extending our value and leveraging our channel focus to fill a significant gap in the market,” said Andy Travers, EVP Worldwide Sales & Marketing at Exclusive Networks. “Our initial MSSD services are designed to be as easy to understand and transact as possible so that partners can maximize customer mindshare immediately.”

The platform has launched with two core SOC-based managed security services, which each support multiple vendor technologies and can be white-labeled with volume commitments. One is a Monitoring & Alerting service that delivers 24/7 oversight of core security infrastructure such as firewalls, allowing end customers to avoid resource and training expenditures. The second option is an add-on service that provides prevention and countermeasure functionalities. Additional services are expected to be added in 2020.

“We see the high set-up costs and skills requirements of building an MSSP SOC restricting the channel’s dynamism and preventing the majority of partners from addressing customer demand for new forms of security consumption,” said Julien Antoine, EVP Strategy & Operations at Exclusive Networks. “The MSSD platform levels the playing field by removing the need for partners to put hard-earned business through competitors.”

Channel Impact^®
The vendor expects that the new offer will enable partners to double their revenue growth that wrap around core Exclusive Networks offerings and allow partners to increase customer lifetime value and tap into a market opportunity growing twice as fast as traditional cybersecurity.

AWS Rolls out Retail Competency

Amazon Web Services has rolled out its AWS Retail Competency for retail customers looking for highly specialized APN Partners offering retail technology on AWS. The designation is intended to help customers streamline the process of identifying, vetting, and highlighting industry specialized APN Partners who have proven success and deep technical capabilities when it comes to retail.

Partners holding this competency have undergone multiple levels of technical validations and deep-dives into their security practices and solution architectures with AWS Solution Architects, to ensure proper alignment with AWS’ best practices.

Most of the partners have demonstrated expertise with newer technologies and disciplines such as data lakes, AI/ML, Voice, IoT, microservices, and retail transformation.

Meanwhile, AWS has also rolled out a series of workshops aimed at helping partners to increase customer engagement in areas such as database migration, artificial intelligence, machine learning, containers, security, compliance, and IoT.

Channel Impact^®
Both announcements were part of a series of rollouts intended to help increase channel technical and engagement skills.