Podcasts about global channels

El nombramiento de Jonathan Berger como Senior Vice President, Global Channels and Alliances marca una nueva etapa para SonicWall en su estrategia mundial de partners. Su llegada refuerza el enfoque de la compañía hacia MSPs, MSSPs y resellers que buscan crecer con servicios gestionados, ingresos recurrentes y mayor rentabilidad en ciberseguridad.

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Faraz Siraj, Vice-President of Global Channels & Alliances at Fortra. With 30 years in technology, 16 of them focused entirely on the channel, and experience at Cisco, RSA, Code42, and now Fortra, Faraz brings a long-range perspective on what makes channel programs actually work.Faraz opens with a framework that has guided his career: the Four T's. Technology comes first, because nothing in the channel works without a strong product. Transparency follows, chosen deliberately over "trust" because Faraz sees transparency as the active ingredient, the commitment to sharing wins, setbacks, and the full journey with your partners. Third is 3 Times growth, a number he describes as realistic and achievable in cybersecurity, especially with a portfolio as broad as Fortra's. The fourth T is Together, reflecting his belief that no vendor can effectively serve the modern threat landscape alone. Fortra does not do services and advisory. Partners do. That relationship is not a gap in the model but the heart of it.On the process of building a channel program, Faraz is direct: it takes time. His benchmark is three years, with 18 months as the minimum before meaningful results appear. He compares it to a body transformation, requiring consistent effort, small wins measured along the way, and patience with a long-term goal. The red flag he watches for most is treating partners as fulfillment, bringing them in at the end of a deal to sign paperwork. Real partnership means joining the sales cycle from the beginning, understanding what the partner needs in return, and building a relationship that lasts beyond the transaction.The energy that keeps Faraz going after three decades in this business: winning together. One-to-many beats one-to-one every time._________________________Learn more about Channext

Doug Houghton, director of global channels at Alkira There’s a line from this episode that’s worth leading with: “Networking is not sexy until it doesn’t work.” That’s Doug Houghton, Director of Global Channels at Alkira, and it’s a pretty concise summary of why his company exists. Alkira was founded by the team behind Viptela – the startup that essentially created the SD-WAN category before being acquired by Cisco. The lesson they carried out of that experience is that SD-WAN, for all its promise, still ran into the limits of underlying infrastructure. You ended up with disparate networks, latency constraints, and complexity that didn’t disappear – it just moved somewhere else. What they built in response is Network Infrastructure as a Service (NIaaS) – a cloud-native, consumption-based global backbone that abstracts multi-cloud connectivity into a single managed plane. The pitch to partners is concrete: consolidate 50 physical firewalls into virtualized functions, reduce total cost of ownership by 40-70%, and do it without a rip-and-replace cycle. The timing matters, and Houghton is direct about why. AI workloads – distributed large language models, agentic workflows reaching across multiple clouds simultaneously – demand a level of network elasticity that legacy infrastructure simply wasn’t designed for. Alkira’s argument is that they’re the smooth road that makes AI-driven infrastructure actually work in practice. For Canadian partners, Alkira has real resources on the ground: a solution architect based in Toronto, a dedicated channel account manager, and publicly referenceable Canadian customers including contact center provider ContactPoint 360. The Connect Partner Program, launched in March 2026, puts approximately 20 percent total margin on the table across base discount, rebates, MDF, and POC SPIFFs – with average initial deals around $500,000 USD and typical expansion of 4x in year one. Canadian partners interested in the conversation can reach the team at partners@alkira.com. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last sixteen years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. If you were around when SD-WAN was the big disruptive idea in networking – the promise of simplifying branch connectivity, cutting costs, getting smarter about traffic – you probably also remember it didn’t quite deliver everything it promised. Not because the technology was bad, but because the underlying network architecture couldn’t keep up. You still ended up with complexity. It just moved somewhere else. That problem is essentially the founding insight behind Alkira. The company was built by Amir Khan and Atif Khan, the same team behind Viptela, the startup widely credited with creating the SD-WAN category before Cisco acquired it. What they learned in that experience is that SD-WAN, without a proper global backbone, just creates a different set of headaches. So they started fresh and built what they call NIaaS – Network Infrastructure as a Service – a cloud-native, consumption-based approach that abstracts the complexity of multi-cloud connectivity into something you could stand up, as my guest today puts it, with just a username and a password. The timing is not accidental, because what AI demands from a network – elasticity, low latency, the ability to reach distributed workloads almost anywhere instantly – is exactly what legacy infrastructure wasn’t built to handle. My guest is Doug Houghton, Director of Global Channels at Alkira. Doug has been in the channel a long time, knows the technology in a way that might genuinely surprise you coming from a channel chief, and has a lot to say about what it all means as a real business opportunity for Canadian VARs and MSPs. Let’s get right into it, my chat with Doug Houghton. Doug, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Doug Houghton: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me on today, Robert. Robert Dutt: So you were part of the team that built up the SD-WAN market at Viptela back in the day. What did you learn there that told you the next big thing was going to be NIaaS, and why now? Doug Houghton: First off, that’s a great question. I felt a bit like a passenger in a car racing a thousand miles an hour when we were doing software-defined wide-area networking. What we learned was that without organizing your cloud infrastructure properly, your cloud bill gets ridiculously large – especially if you keep your control element decoupled from your data plane in the cloud with all these workloads churning. But what we really learned, and what’s applicable to what we’re now doing at Alkira, is that SD-WAN truly did deliver on its core promise. It allows customers to influence traffic based on link quality and improve the user experience. If you’re on a phone call and it starts to get goofy, you can move over to a better-performing link in real time without dropping the call. That’s powerful. And the same with data traffic. What I hadn’t fully thought through was what happens as global companies start to adopt SD-WAN and disaggregate across locations in Southeast Asia, China, Latin America, and everywhere else. The latency back to the control element isn’t easy to contend with. So you ended up with organizations making decisions that effectively created four separate, disparate networks for latency purposes. And that was not part of the original promise. What we learned was that you need a global backbone that’s high throughput and low latency. The edge can still be SD-WAN – there are real things in SD-WAN that people still want, whether that’s WAN optimization, deduplication, caching, policy-based routing, forward error correction. All of that still has practical application, and site-to-site communications are still needed in many use cases. But Alkira was built inside the cloud first, employing the same principle of decoupling control plane from data plane for scale. By abstracting the cloud infrastructure, we were able to remediate the latency that those four geographically dispersed networks created. We’re the global backbone – that middle mile with high throughput and low latency – and then you connect these clusters of SD-WAN networks together and all of a sudden the promise of SD-WAN gets a lot more consumable. You have a singular network managed from a singular control plane and element management orchestrator, and you can still get all the benefits of SD-WAN at the local sites. Robert Dutt So in plain language, a Canadian MSP or VAR is used to selling network hardware or managing someone else’s infrastructure. How is selling, deploying, and managing NIaaS different from what they’re already doing, and what makes that distinction important? Doug Houghton: Let’s take a half step back and talk about what NIaaS actually is. It’s Network Infrastructure as a Service. What Alkira does is abstract the cloud infrastructure and build a routed overlay on top of it. We think of it as a virtualized colocation facility that connects and normalizes communications across your entire network. For managed service providers and service providers, our solution accelerates bringing their customers to cloud applications, cloud workloads, storage, and everything else the cloud promises. The way I explain it to my mom – and I’ve told this joke once already today because I’m sitting in a partner’s office right now – is this: if you went to Russia, Japan, Argentina, and San Francisco all in one day and had to transact in each place, and you could speak the native language in each one, that would be ideal. What we focused on was normalizing communications regardless of the cloud service provider, colocation provider, data centre – private or public – or whatever type of router is at the branch office. As an MSP or service provider that comes in, what we give to our customers and partners is a username and a password. That lets you come in and – for your old-school folks in the audience – essentially etch-a-sketch your network together. You can turn a couple of knobs, and it’s not that we’ve cranked the amp up to eleven, we’ve just removed all the numbers and automated everything. It just knows what you want to do. It’s a routed BGP overlay with the control plane abstracted from it, so the forwarding plane can route around things like the CrowdStrike outage, or losing an AWS region – which happens more frequently than AWS would like to admit – or any cloud service provider incident. The multi-cloud reality has accelerated adoption, but it presents a new problem: you’ve got an AWS expert on staff, but you don’t have an Azure, GCP, OCI, or Alibaba Cloud expert. Those are all different languages. When I tell my mom that we normalize the communications between all the assets in the network and make it easy to connect to all of them, she gets that. For the MSP looking to monetize something new or add another revenue stream, we offer a couple of compelling things. In the middle of our stack, we place a solution inside the cloud – sitting in a VPC, VNet, VCN, or Google VPC – right in the middle of all the cloud, SaaS, and WAN workloads. We’ve pleased a lot of customers by lowering total cost of ownership through the consolidation of network services they already have in their environment, in the form of virtualized network functions. Take a Palo Alto firewall deployment – say you have fifty Palos out there, all talking to Panorama, with a security engineer managing policy centrally. Instead of having fifty firewalls on the ground, you consolidate them. You go from the ground – five to ten milliseconds to the nearest public cloud PoP – hop onto the Alkira fabric, and terminate that traffic on a virtual port on our exchange point. In the middle of that exchange point, sitting in a VPC or VNet, you place a Palo Alto virtualized network function. You get the IP address of the Panorama server, and if you didn’t tell the security engineer anything had changed, they would not know. The form factor changes, but not how they interact with Panorama, how they build policy, or anything about how they secure the traffic. That remains exactly the same. We virtualize the instance and place it on a global high-throughput, low-latency backbone inside our exchange point. We deploy exchange points in HA pairs, anywhere from 100 Mbps to 40 Gbps. The customer or service provider consumes one, and we maintain the other on their behalf – because every thirty days we’re fixing bugs and doing maintenance. We swing production workloads to the backup, do the work on the primary, then reverse the order, all while keeping these customers up and running. Because we’re delivering this as a service, it has to always be on. One of the most important architectural decisions we made from the start was ensuring those two exchange points are always running active-active in a full mesh configuration, buttressed by hundreds of other exchange points globally distributed – all synchronized and aware of each other’s states. Robert Dutt: You’ve said that legacy networks can’t handle what AI demands, specifically in terms of elasticity. Can you unpack that a little? When an MSP’s customer starts deploying language models or agentic workflows, what is it that actually breaks? Doug Houghton: Good question, and I’ll give you an honest answer. I’ve started to fall in love with Claude – I think it’s one of the coolest things in the world. I can do all sorts of creative things with it. But Claude isn’t talking only to me. He’s a bit of a flirt – he goes to a lot of different places to get knowledgeable about various things and produce the outcomes I’ve asked for. And those other places are where you run into problems. I used to say the three biggest AI providers are GCP, AWS, and Azure. That’s still largely true. But the likes of Anthropic and other AI labs are distributing LLM workloads everywhere. Without the right network underneath that, it’s like buying the hottest car and driving it down a pothole-filled road. What we offer is a high-throughput, low-latency, elastic network. If you need to turn it up in a heartbeat, you can. We helped complete the S&P Global and IHS Markit merger network integration in about a tenth of the time they expected, because we’re natively segmented. Think about those two networks as large datasets that AI agents need to access. You have to secure the traffic, and you need it to be elastic – able to reach anywhere, instantly, to produce the outcome the agent was asked for. The ability to go anywhere on a road that’s smooth as glass, in the hottest car possible – that’s what we offer. Our network infrastructure solution is an abstraction: a forwarding plane that goes everywhere, and your imagination is really the only limitation. Speed, elasticity, and securing access – even for agentic, self-directed workflows – it’s still a critical element. And nobody – I said this earlier today, so I’ll say it again – networking is not really sexy until it doesn’t work. If I have to get in and route-peer and manually configure transit gateways, I’m going to punch myself in the face repeatedly. I just don’t want to do it. It slows everything down. I can automate it with Terraform, sure. But I want to consume it now. I want to prompt it now. I want the outcome now. Robert Dutt: You’ve launched Alkira NIA, your AI co-pilot and network infrastructure assistant, along with an MCP server last year. It’s interesting – you’re essentially putting AI on top of the infrastructure that’s enabling AI. What does NIA actually do for an MSP’s day-to-day operations? Doug Houghton: Maybe I have a limited imagination, but I still use it like a utility. NIA is great because it allows you to search through all our documentation in a more organized way. We have amazing documentation – there’s a lot of it – and when you’re looking for a specific configuration or something captured in a knowledge base, that tool is really useful. But continuing the utility theme: how do I do something? If I want to create a micro-segment to distribute to a bunch of business units, or build an isolated Layer 3 routing table and get it to various business units, and then set up billing with specific billing tags for each segment – I know how to do that because I’ve done it many times. But a new user may not. You can use the NIA agent to search the documentation, search previous implementation notes, best practices, all of that. That’s real value. But you can also ask it something like “why is the sun bright” and it won’t return the answer you expect. I’ve done that too. Robert Dutt: Let’s talk about the Connect Partner Program and the economics. You’ve got the Partner Profit Stack – tiered margins, quarterly rebates, MDF, SPIFFs, the Connect Pipeline Fund. It’s a full toolkit, and it’s stuff partners have seen before. What’s the real math? What does a Canadian MSP at the Premier tier actually walk away with on a typical deal after they’ve done the work? Doug Houghton: Usually about nineteen percentage points – maybe a little more. On the pre-sale side, when we get into a POC, our Premier partners can earn a $1,000 SPIFF. We close about 85% of our POCs, so there’s real value in that. Add in the rebates and MDF access, and the total haul is closer to 20% on each deal. Worth mentioning: we’ve been a 100% channel company since May 2022. My partner David Klubinoff, my technical counterpart – we worked together at Viptela and we started the Alkira channel together. It took a couple of weeks to convince our CEO that going 100% channel was the right call. I think he’s a believer now. We’ve driven significant revenue for the company, and our partners are our thought leaders – out in the market talking about our solution and solving customer problems. I was in Chicago yesterday doing a technical enablement session with thirty-plus SAs and SEs. We had the classic SD-WAN questions, and a lot of questions about segmentation and M&A. There’s enormous consolidation happening in insurance, healthcare, and other sectors, and the overlapping IP address problem that comes with mergers is something MSPs face all the time. We’ve entirely simplified that. You build a NAT policy right in the solution and the overlapping IP issue is resolved within an hour. In the case of S&P Global and IHS Markit, they thought their merger network integration was going to take a couple of years. The issue was largely the overlapping IP addresses – IHS couldn’t talk to the HR applications at S&P, and vice versa, plus all the other interdependencies. You need a fast way to solve the overlapping IP problem before you can even get to the real work. That’s been a core design element of our solution from the very start: take care of the small things, and people can move faster and get to market faster. Our biggest MSP – and this is a publicly referenceable customer – is CEDA, a French-based organization that provides managed network services to 95% of the world’s airlines. For them, it means being able to turn up a new customer faster, connecting on-premises assets to their control elements so they can begin actually managing that network. Speed, and the efficiencies and cost reductions that come from it – that’s what it does for all MSPs. If you’re consolidating fifty firewalls into virtualized functions, you’re making a good commission, getting MDF support, quarterly rebates, and a SPIFF when you engage us collaboratively on a POC. All of that happens at an accelerated rate. I’ve been screaming from the mountaintop about our solution for about four years. Invariably, you’d walk into a room, say “Hi, I’m Doug Houghton from Alkira,” and they’d say “Who?” That’s starting to happen a lot less, which is a genuinely nice thing. Over the last twelve to twenty-four months, the business has grown exponentially, the diversity of our partner ecosystem has increased, and partner margins have been very healthy. The tiered structure was really about celebrating partners who have invested in us. Honestly, I’m waiting for the day my boss tells me to stop incentivizing partners – because when that happens, I’ll know we’ve hit the apex. Our partners will be generating so much revenue that someone gets uncomfortable with what we’re paying out. I can’t wait for that day. Some of the more interesting things in the program came from actually listening. I went around and talked to a bunch of partners about their ideal partner programs and built from there. And one of the realizations – I thought it was significant – was what we were actually doing on the post-sale side. We white-glove every implementation right now, because it’s critically important to us. We haven’t lost a customer, and we intend to keep it that way. But that doesn’t scale forever. So the question became: why don’t we help our partners productize the post-sale work? We built a product catalog, a pricing calculator, and a new partner portal we’re about to release, with its own AI agent for searching market assets. The product catalog was a light bulb moment. We pay healthy margins on the pre-sale side at every tier of Alkira Connect. But we had never touched the post-sale side at all. We’re largely automated and NIaaS is as simple as possible to consume – a username and a password. My thirteen-year-old could configure a network, and she’s really smart. But there’s still some implementation work. You still need to build policies in Panorama. There’s still DDI work. There are still services that partners can benefit from – and all partner types, MSPs, VARs, master agents, sub-agents, service providers, now have a post-sale commission opportunity. Robert Dutt: You mentioned services – you’ve got services attach plays around modernization assessments, segmentation design, migration sprints. Starting from zero, how long does it realistically take a partner to get their first deal with those services attached through the door, and what does the ramp look like? Doug Houghton: There’s a lot in that question. Let’s take a half step back. We have virtual sales and go-to-market training – three modules – and then five or six technical training modules. We’ve got a lab-in-a-box environment, foundational and advanced technical training, and DDI training. Partners typically start there. Then we run regular in-person and virtual sessions – one partner has regular office hours with me, my SE counterpart David, or our architect Christopher Arenas, and we just invite partners to come and ask questions. Getting partners genuinely comfortable with the technology is the most important thing we do, because nobody goes out and sells anything unless they’re confident they can explain how Alkira solves their customer’s problem. That’s what I’m doing in Chicago today. Our customers tend to be fairly large. We’ve got our first Fortune 10 customer now. The more complex the network, the larger and more global the deployment – multiple countries, security vendors, firewalls, DDI providers, load balancers, service providers, colos. We sit right on top of all of that. The average sales cycle is about 190 days – a little over six months. A newly enabled partner might encounter an M&A overlapping IP use case, recognize the problem, and say “I think we can solve this with Alkira.” They go through a POC together with us, the customer commits, and that first deal closes around 190 days. A little class week: it’s actually 190 and a half. The average deal size is about $500,000 USD. We then see significant expansion: typically 4x growth in the first twelve months after the initial close, and around 8x in the second twelve months. Real incentive to stick with it. We’re loyal – if the customer doesn’t kick the partner out, we go to bat with that partner on every expansion deal. We land, then expand, with the same partner. BNSF, one of our other public references, has expanded several times to address more and more use cases. The solution gets sticky and customers are genuinely surprised by how easy it is. On the post-sale side, we come in and help with implementation, especially early on. But we’re reaching the point where more capable partners can handle it themselves. We’re building a post-sale certification for Alkira right now. In the meantime, we ride shotgun through the first couple of implementations – virtually in Slack or in person – until partners are fully up to speed. All partners have access to our Slack channel, along with our entire solutions architecture and SE staff. One partner working on a Fortune 10 engagement has a great habit of putting a subject header in Slack and starting a conversation. He’s been on services at this customer for three or four months – a significant engagement. He’s the one who originally described the network as a “spaghetti mess,” which I still chuckle about. I actually built the product catalog based on those Slack headers – pulled them together, socialized them with a group of partners, got input, and built from there. To directly answer your question: you’ve got to get through that first deal, and we’re going to ride shotgun with you through the first couple of implementations. The partner learns, gets comfortable, can monetize it, and can deliver independently from there. We have no illusions about going back to being a direct company after May 2022. It’s ride or die – 100% channel, and we enable our partners to solve their customers’ problems and support them while they do it. Because our partners have been our biggest growth engine. Robert Dutt: You’ve talked about a goal of doubling revenue through partners. What does the ecosystem look like when you get there? This sounds like it could primarily be a GSI or large integrator play, given the customer complexity you’re describing. Or do you genuinely see a path for mid-market MSPs and VARs to build a meaningful NIaaS practice? Doug Houghton: Another tough question. Yes, I do have GSIs as partners. We have a fairly robust and diverse partner ecosystem, and we see small shops rising up while larger shops are moving a bit more slowly, honestly. We’re still in that brand awareness honeymoon period – people are realizing our technology is compelling, getting themselves enabled. Some large partners we’ve recently brought on are still ramping. The biggest and most established organizations aren’t yet as capable as they will be, but we’re working diligently on that. Some of our smaller partners, on the other hand – I’m thinking of a friend of mine in Utah who is just an absolute champion. He knows our solution better than almost anyone. He closed six or seven deals in the past year, supported the implementations, did it largely on his own, because he’s curious, motivated, read all the documentation, and has been through full implementation cycles with us. He works at a ten-person shop. They just happen to have really good customers, and he knows the solution cold. So we’re at different stages with different partners in terms of maturity. The answer to your question is genuinely both. The small shop in Utah and the large national partner dedicating more resources as they see more customer problems Alkira can solve – we see wins across both. In the networking space, a six-month sales cycle is about as fast as it gets. I’m giving you a username and a password and you’re going in and connecting all of a customer’s assets together. The path exists for partners of every size. Robert Dutt: You’ve called out Canada specifically in your expansion plans, alongside the UK, EU, and the Middle East. What does that look like operationally – localized support, a Canadian channel team – or is it more of a global platform available to Canadian partners? Doug Houghton: Let’s talk personnel. We have a dedicated rep in eastern Canada, based out of New Hampshire, and a brilliant solutions architect just outside of Toronto. We’ve got a channel account manager – very capable teammate of mine, Savannah Stone – and the entire global solutions architecture staff accessible via Slack. We recently closed a very significant logo in Canada – a large insurance company – and our publicly referenceable Canadian customer is ContactPoint 360, a contact centre and BPO provider. They wanted to connect their Latin American operations back to Canada and couldn’t find an effective way to do it without us. We route them through the US West region, and the results have been excellent. We’ve also added CDW Canada as a partner, and I’ve got a value-added distributor that helps with field events. It’s not a massive footprint yet – it’s a bit of “they come first, then we build” – but there is a tremendous amount of opportunity in Canada and in Latin America that I’m genuinely excited about. Nobody’s told me no yet on spending budget, so here we go. A great story on the Canadian side: a gentleman named Chris Thelosinos, an architect and consultant who works with others in our space, is a member at a wine shop in Toronto. During the Toronto International Film Festival last year, we hosted a wine event right next to TIFF. I don’t drink alcohol, so it was entirely about the conversations for me – and I had the best time. We had significant customers come out, and the demand for simplicity, ease of implementation, and everything Alkira does well was just as strong in Canada as anywhere else. The market need is real. We talk about global backbone as a service all the time. Connecting China to San Francisco carries a distance and time tax, but it’s easy to configure. For organizations navigating geopolitical complexity around China access, or needing GPU connectivity in and out, we just abstract the Azure and AWS mainland China instances. They operate the same way as their Canadian or US equivalents. And you can consume it pay-as-you-go – stop using it, stop paying for it. That’s a compelling model for MSPs looking to grow into different regions. Robert Dutt: Last question then. For that Canadian MSP who’s listened to this and is thinking, “This sounds like a real opportunity” – what’s the one thing you’d want them to take away and act on? Doug Houghton: I’d ask them to go to partners@alkira.com and send us a note. And I will ply them with all sorts of content – videos, learnings, deal registration information, everything they need to get started in the space. Tongue in cheek, and also completely seriously: partners@alkira.com. If you’re looking to grow your business as a managed service provider – managed network, managed security, managed load balancing, managed DDI, managed connectivity – we’re a really great place to start. Because it’s never unpopular to walk into a customer and solve their problem quickly and say, “I can help you with X, Y, and Z, and I can do it in the next couple of hours – and that’s going to drive a total cost of ownership savings of 40 to 70%.” Nobody ever kicks you out of the office when you say something like that. Robert Dutt: Amazing. Doug, I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much. Doug Houghton: Robert, thank you for the engaging conversation. I hope your listeners get some good stuff out of it. Robert Dutt: There you have it – Doug Houghton from Alkira. I’d like to thank Doug for his time, and honestly for being one of the more entertaining guests I’ve had on in a while. “Networking is not sexy until it doesn’t work” is a line I’m going to be thinking about for a while. Thanks to you for listening as well. If this conversation sparked something – whether it’s curiosity about NIaaS, the AI infrastructure angle, or what roughly 20% total margin on a $500,000 average deal could do for your business – Doug made it easy for you to take the next step. Drop a note to partners@alkira.com. That’s the front door. And from what I heard today, they will absolutely get back to you. Here’s the thing that stuck with me most in this conversation: the argument that the AI moment isn’t just a software or services play. It’s going to force a reckoning with network infrastructure that a lot of organizations have been deferring for years. The partners who treat that reckoning as an opportunity rather than a fire drill are probably going to look very smart in about three years. If you’re finding the In The Channel podcast from ChannelBuzz.ca useful, the best thing you can do is follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most major directories. And if you’re enjoying the show, ratings and reviews are genuinely appreciated – they help other people in the Canadian channel find us. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Faraz Siraj, vice president of global channels and alliances at Fortra Faraz Siraj, vice president of global channels and alliances at Fortra, joins the podcast to talk about what it looks like to build a channel program around a cybersecurity platform assembled through more than 20 acquisitions – and why MSPs should be paying attention now. Fortra’s portfolio spans offensive security tools like Cobalt Strike and Core Impact, data protection through Digital Guardian, and security awareness training via Terra Nova Security. It’s a wide footprint, and as Faraz acknowledges, many partners still know the acquired brands without realizing they’re all under one roof. The Fortra Protect partner program, launched in 2025 with guaranteed margins and a single FortraOne partner agreement, is the company’s answer to the fragmented discount structures and multiple contracts that came with all that M&A. The conversation also digs into Fortra’s recent decision to sell its Alert Logic managed detection and response services to LevelBlue – a deliberate move to position the company as a software provider, not a services competitor to its own partners. Faraz is candid about where offensive security capabilities realistically fit into an MSP’s stack and where they don’t, and offers a practical on-ramp for Canadian partners through Fortra’s acquisitions of Ottawa-based Titus and Montreal-based Terra Nova. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. If I say the name Fortra, there’s a decent chance you might not immediately place it. But if I say Cobalt Strike, or Digital Guardian, or Alert Logic, or Titus, especially if you’re in Ottawa, those might ring a bell. Fortra is the company that’s been quietly acquiring cybersecurity companies for the better part of a decade. More than 20 acquisitions in all, and now they’re trying to stitch it all together into a unified platform, pointed squarely at MSPs and MSSPs. What makes this story interesting right now is they’ve recently made some moves that signal where they think they fit into the ecosystem. They sold off their Alert Logic managed services business to LevelBlue, which is a pretty clear statement. We make software, we’re not going to compete with you on service delivery. And they’ve rolled out a new partner program called Fortra Protect with guaranteed margins and a single partner agreement that covers the whole portfolio. My guest today is Faraz Siraj, Fortra’s Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances, and I wanted to talk to you about what it looks like to build a channel program around a platform that was assembled through acquisition, how MSPs should think about the balance between offensive and defensive security capabilities, and whether there’s a Canadian go-to-market story here. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Faraz Siraj. Faraz, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Faraz Siraj: Great to be here. Robert Dutt: Fortra has been built through a bunch of acquisitions. 20+, 25+ I think? For MSPs who know Cobalt Strike or Digital Guardian but don’t necessarily know the umbrella brand of Fortra, what’s the pitch for why they should think of you guys as a platform rather than sort of a collection of tools? Faraz Siraj: Great question. Well, all of these products that we acquired over a, I’d say, a five-year period, it was around a little over 20 companies, we are going to platformization, and all of these will be available via the platform. And the platform provides a variety of tools to manage, and so MSPs would probably want to welcome that opportunity to utilize a single platform with multi-tenancy to help manage those solutions for their customers. It’s just a natural fit, and rather than having multi-screens, multiple interfaces to be able to provide those types of managed services, so it’s a very, very powerful way of bringing it all together. Robert Dutt: For that MSP market, you guys sold off Alert Logic’s managed services business to LevelBlue a couple of months ago. What does that signal to MSPs about where you see Fortra sitting in the ecosystem moving forward, in terms of trying to be a technology brand behind the MSP? Faraz Siraj: Well, that’s a perfect fit. I think we realized that the managed service business is not really what our strong suit is. And we aligned our Alert Logic business with a suitor that can take full advantage of that kind of business, and they’re very good at it. We, over time, realized that if you want to do that business, you have to really focus in on it, whereas we had other priorities. And so what that tells the market and other partners out there is that we need our partners to be able to provide those managed solutions. We truly are in the business of making and providing software. We do not want to be in the services game. We want to have our partners provide those services, whether it is managed services or whether it’s installation services, optimization services delivery, we need our partners to do that. And that’s what creates opportunity. And that’s what I’m really excited about with our platform play, as well as where our future direction is as a company around the products that we provide. Robert Dutt: One of the most interesting things I think you guys talk about is the idea of MSPs balancing offense and defense. And I guess I want to dig into what that actually looks like in terms of the service delivery level. Where does offensive insight realistically show up in the day-to-day stack for an MSP? Faraz Siraj: Well, it shows up everywhere, whether you realize or not. It is in whether it is vulnerability management, it’s in offensive security tooling, it is in pen testing, it is in simulations. That takes some knowledge and ability to provide those services around those capabilities. And that’s just from an offensive side. There is a need for support for those particular product sets. On the defensive side, it’s pretty simple. I mean, we have a lot of those defensive protection products, and we need our partners to be able to provide solutions around it. Robert Dutt: Yeah, and MSPs, most I would dare say at this point, are defensive operators by nature. Prevent, detect, respond, deal with the problem. What can MSPs realistically do with offensive capabilities, and where should they not be trying to operationalize offensive capabilities in their stack? Faraz Siraj: Well, the first thing that I would tell them is be comfortable with what you’re providing. Be comfortable with your capabilities that you can go to your market with, with your customers. If you don’t know it, you can certainly learn, but you don’t want to try to pigeonhole yourself into a technology that you’re unfamiliar with. We can help with that. We have a lot of training. We have a lot of classes available through our Fortra Academy that can help them, and we have onboarding that we can help partners with. Again, it would be, I would think about the customer and work backwards. You would want to qualify the customer and qualify their needs. And if offensive security is something that is a pain point for your customer, then investigate it. And sometimes it’s not. And if it’s not needed, why would you want to venture and invest in an area that you’re unfamiliar with? Now I’d love for all of them to do it, but I’m an honest person. Sometimes it doesn’t make the right business sense. Robert Dutt: You guys acquired Red Macros Factory to enhance Outflank Security Tooling. Cobalt Strike is used by red teams worldwide, but it’s also used by threat actors who are probably using cracked copies. That led Fortra and Microsoft to take joint legal action in the past. How do you talk to partners about selling offensive tools when some of those tools have been weaponized against their customers? Faraz Siraj: It’s a discussion point. It’s also sort of a proof of concept in a twisted sort of way. Well, we do not support any illegal use of our products. We do not support using it for the wrong reasons, so to speak. We have strict legal language on it and we have gone to legal with Microsoft about those kinds of things, because we have strict requirements of how you’re going to utilize this tool. If we find out that you’re using it for the wrong reasons, weaponization, we cut it off. And that’s part of the qualification. And that’s also part of the execution and inspection that we look at. These are very powerful tools and they are not for that purpose. And just as another example is when we provide NFR gear, it’s meant for testing purposes and lab gear. You cannot be utilizing it to provide protection from as a customer standpoint, even though it’s not the same completely. It’s similar. And we just, we have to be very transparent and upfront about what these tools are about and how they’re supposed to be used. Robert Dutt: Let’s talk about the program and what you guys are doing there. You’ve introduced guaranteed margins with Fortra Protect and the FortraOne agreement. What problem were you specifically trying to solve with that model and what was sort of the problem with how partners were engaging with Fortra before? Faraz Siraj: Yeah, there’s several problems that we were addressing and yet we came to an innovative way on how to address it. So let’s look at a little history. When you acquire so many companies, your discount structure is all over the place. In Fortra transparency, we had discounts that were in the low 20s and going way north into the higher discounts. And when partners want to work with you, they expect a certain discount table for all products. And when you’re all over the map, you can’t really do that. Additionally, we wanted to encourage our partners to look at the entire portfolio and be encouraged by representing all Fortra. We had different agreements and we had different programs by product lines and we needed to bring it all together. And so as I joined, we did the FortraOne agreement, which brings everything into one unified legal agreement to be able to represent our products. And that’s the easy part. Second, we wanted to provide incentives to our partners to represent not only the products they’re familiar with, but all the other products that we had. And guaranteed margin was the best way to do it. Now there’s no guesswork on partner profitability. You know what you’re going to be making. And when you know that upfront, you can now focus in on the real problem at hand is providing customer solutions. We can work on it jointly. I can tell you I’ve been in the industry long enough where I continuously talk to partners and their pain points are around profitability and the unknown. Working deals and then being squeezed or not knowing what they’re going to make until the very end. And you’ve spent all this time working on these solutions and then you are not going to kind of have that profitability that you want. That’s a big deal. And we took the guesswork out of it. And now let’s focus on the customer, which is quite from what I hear the most important thing. Robert Dutt: I’ve heard the same thing, believe it or not. What do you see as sort of the, as you’re looking at the platform structure and trying to make it easier and more smooth for partners to sell across that, what are kind of the one or two top entry points for partners? And what do you see as sort of the next adjacencies that partners naturally gravitate towards as they get to know what all you guys are doing and get comfortable with the model? Faraz Siraj: Yeah, I think the best entry point would be around data protection. And we offer so many varieties of security solutions, but the best way is around data protection. And let’s face it, data has been exploding and will continue to explode. There is a fun new variable out there called AI that is in the forefront of everybody’s minds. And it’s being utilized for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. And whatever your case is, you need to protect your data with however which way it’s exposed. And so we have data protection solutions that will be enhanced by AI, but also will protect against AI because your data is the most valuable commodity that you have as a company. And so with our data protection, such as our DLP solutions, our data classification solutions, DSPM, that’s a great entry point. And then you can expand from there with the use of the platform. But that’s what I highly recommend for partners that are just getting into this. Robert Dutt: You joined Fortra in late 2024, and this is being described as kind of the company’s first dedicated channel push. For Canadian MSPs who aren’t in the ecosystem currently, what’s the realistic on-ramp for working with you guys? And I’m curious where you’re at in the Canadian market in terms of is there a distribution and go-to-market story here, or is it sort of primarily still being built around the US model? Faraz Siraj: No, it’s a true North American model. By the way, we acquired a few Canadian companies, and we have several Canadian MSPs already that we work with. We are always looking to expand within the Canadian market. Companies that we acquired that are well-known in Canada, such as Terra Nova and Titus. Terra Nova out of Montreal. Titus was out of, I believe, Ottawa. Terra Nova, by the way, human risk management or security awareness training, if you want to call it, is an MSP’s dream. It can be branded by a partner, and it can be run as if it were the partner’s business. And we actually go to market heavily with a lot of Canadian companies for that particular product line. If you ever wanted the easy button to get involved with Fortra, it would really be the Terra Nova product, human risk management, because everybody needs security awareness training. I go through it every six months at Fortra ourselves. I’m a user on product, but you need to have that refresher, because in the simplest forms, we are exposed to crazy stuff that comes to us, and you need to be trained on it. So that’s where I would go from a market perspective, but we love our Canadian companies, and we’ll continue to operate that way. Robert Dutt: It sounds like you’re open to adding additional MSPs, obviously. What do you find are some of the common threads among successful Fortra MSPs? Faraz Siraj: It really is around providing good customer joint solutions. We obviously want to be in the software business, but we also want to be with partners that align to that software as well as providing the customer satisfaction. And so the ones that do it well are the ones that are able to bolt onto their services on top of the solution and do it well. And we’re not hearing about issues. In fact, the successful ones are the ones that are expanding those solutions and going into more and more customers. The other piece of it is being able to be creative with billing for the partner so that it entices them to go out and obviously have partner profitability. Robert Dutt: If an MSP is listening to this and they’re doing the standard defensive stack – EDR, SIEM, firewall – but they’ve never really offered anything on the offensive side, what’s the first conversation they should be having with customers? And how do they avoid turning offense into, you know, the once-a-year pentest PDF and call it a day kind of thing? Faraz Siraj: Yeah, well, it really goes back to understanding the customer. Now, it starts with, yes, pen testing is very important, but it’s not just once a year. Given today’s threat landscape, you need to do that a lot more often. Vulnerability management, those are the two major entry points. We built our vulnerability management tool from a mixture of six different technologies from six different companies, and we fused it together to make our own Fortra vulnerability management tool. Such companies like Tripwire, Digital Defense, Beyond Security, even a little bit of Alert Logic that was in there and there’s a couple others that I’m forgetting, but when you’re able to do that, it makes for a great value product. Robert Dutt: Interesting conversation. I appreciate the colour around the partner program and I appreciate the idea of adding offensive capabilities to the MSP stack. I think that’ll be an interesting space to watch. Faraz, thank you very much for joining us. Faraz Siraj: Oh, you bet. Thank you, Robert. Robert Dutt: There you have it, Faraz Siraj from Fortra. I’d like to thank Faraz for his time. I appreciated his candor, especially on the managed services exit and the reality of what MSPs should and shouldn’t try to take on when it comes to offensive security. Thank you for listening today. A couple things that stuck with me from this conversation. First, the Alert Logic move. When a vendor sells off their managed services business and tells you straight up, we’re in the business of making software and not competing with you on services, that’s worth paying attention to. Doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s the right signal. And in a market where MSPs are constantly wondering which vendors are going to show up as competitors, it matters. Second, the platform story. 20-plus acquisitions is a lot of integration work. And I think the jury’s still out on how seamless that experience actually is for partners day to day. But the FortraOne agreement and the guaranteed margin model suggest they’re at least thinking about the partner experience at the business level, not just the technology level. And for Canadian MSPs specifically, the Terra Nova and Titus acquisitions mean there’s a local footprint here that a lot of people might not realize. If you’re not subscribed to the ChannelBuzz.ca podcast, now’s a great time. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most podcast directories. If you’re finding value in these conversations, a rating or review goes a long way. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

On this episode of Inside Content, Jack Thomas, Director at 3Vision is joined by Carlyn Staudt, President of Global Channels and Streaming at Blue Ant Media. They talk about why owning IP is the foundation for global success, how Blue Ant windows and monetises content across platforms and territories, and why Pay TV still plays a meaningful role - not just for revenue stability, but even for financing and localisation advantages. Stay in the content world loop

Business pain points in complex B2B deals often stem from misalignment between direct sellers, partners, and the wider customer ecosystem - not from the product itself. In this episode, we examine how B2B sales strategy, leadership skills, and customer centricity influence whether enterprise opportunities move forward or stall. On the B2B Sales Trends Podcast, Harry speaks with John Carey, SVP Global Channels at SAS, about how leading organizations structure collaboration between direct sales teams and partners to solve meaningful customer challenges. John shares practical perspectives on navigating channel conflict, clarifying ownership in hybrid sales environments, and building the trust and alignment required to execute complex enterprise deals successfully. You'll learn: – Why unclear ownership creates hidden business pain points in enterprise deals – Why clear account segmentation is the starting point for effective partner engagement – The leadership skills required to run a successful partner ecosystem – Why customer centricity must guide collaboration across the sales and partner ecosystem ⏱ Timestamps 00:00 – Why business pain points often come from partner misalignment 01:27 – John Carey on leading global channels at SAS 04:01 – The real pressure behind modern B2B sales strategy 05:50 – A real-world example of channel conflict in enterprise deals 10:09 – Customer centricity as the foundation of partner collaboration 15:05 – Sales enablement: segmentation and partner role clarity 30:15 – Leadership skills top performers use to close complex deals

Join Hari Sunderraj and Rachel Tuller for a candid conversation on how Autodesk is advancing AI, automation, and connected construction—and what those investments mean for the future of the AECO industry. Recorded during Graitec Innovate2Build, this episode explores how Autodesk is shifting from point solutions to a platform-driven approach—and why culture, data, and ecosystem thinking are critical to making that shift successful. From the power of integrated platforms to the evolving role of partners in driving adoption and outcomes, this conversation focuses on what it really takes to move from vision to value in a connected construction world. You'll Learn: Why culture—not technology alone—is the biggest unlock for connected construction How Autodesk is embedding AI and automation across the project lifecycle What “power in the platform” really means for customers and partners Why starting with why leads to better adoption and business outcomes How the channel helps translate innovation into real-world productivity gains What leaders can learn from other industries that have already gone through digital transformation   MEET OUR GUEST Hari Sunderraj, Vice President of Sales, Autodesk Hari leads Autodesk's emerging business sales globally, focusing on high-growth areas including construction, manufacturing, and infrastructure. He brings a platform-first perspective on how data, AI, and automation can drive safer, more efficient, and more sustainable project delivery. Rachel Tuller, Vice President, Global Channels, Autodesk Rachel leads Autodesk's global partner ecosystem and plays a key role in shaping how partners help customers adopt and scale connected construction solutions. With deep experience across industries, she brings a strong point of view on outcomes-driven transformation and the power of the platform. TODD TAKES Culture unlocks the platform The shift from point solutions to an integrated platform isn't a technology problem—it's a culture one. Connected construction only becomes real when organizations align leadership, teams, and mindset around shared data, shared outcomes, and a willingness to evolve how decisions get made. There's real power in the platform AI, automation, and connected data only deliver value when they work together as part of a unified platform. When data flows across design, build, and operations, teams stop reacting and start predicting—unlocking safer, faster, and more scalable outcomes powered by platforms like Autodesk. Start with the why—and stay curious The most successful transformations begin by understanding real pain points, not by pushing tools. Leaders and partners who start with why, stay naturally curious, and learn from other industries are the ones turning innovation into repeatable, measurable impact.   More Resources  Thanks for listening! Please be sure to leave a rating and/or review and follow up our social accounts. Bridging the Gap Website Bridging the Gap LinkedIn Bridging the Gap Instagram Bridging the Gap YouTube Todd's LinkedIn   Thank you to our sponsors! Graitec North America Graitec North America LinkedIn Autodesk's Website  

Jay McBain is the Chief Analyst for Global Channels at Canalys, recognized worldwide as a leading voice on partnerships, ecosystems, and the future of go-to-market models. With 30 years of experience at IBM, Lenovo, Autotask, ChannelEyes, and Forrester, he's been named Channel Influencer of the Year and featured on dozens of top industry lists. A futurist and community leader, Jay has served on multiple CompTIA councils and advisory boards for CRN, Channel Partners, and Ziff Davis. He's a sought-after keynote speaker and blogger whose insights shape how technology companies build and scale their partner ecosystems. Resources:  Website: https://www.jaymcbain.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/omdia/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymcbain/

“Cyber resilience isn't just about protection, it's about preparation.”Every business in this day and age lives in the cloud. Our operations, data, and collaboration tools are powered by servers located invisibly around the world. But here's the question we often overlook: what happens when the cloud falters?In this episode of Tech Transformed, Trisha Pillay sits down with Jan Ursi, Vice President of Global Channels at Keepit, to uncover the real meaning of cyber resilience in a cloud-first world. Are you putting all your trust in hyperscale cloud providers? Think again. Trisha and Jan explore why relying solely on giants like Microsoft or Amazon can put your data at risk and how independent infrastructure gives organisations control, faster recovery, and true digital sovereignty.Takeaways:The importance of cyber resilience in a cloud-first worldHow independent cloud infrastructure protects your SaaS applicationsCommon shared responsibility misconceptions that can cost organisations dataStrategies for quick recovery from ransomware and cyberattacksWhy digital sovereignty ensures control and complianceChapters:00:00 – Introduction to Cyber Resilience and Cloud Strategy05:00 – The Importance of Independent Infrastructure10:00 – Shared Responsibility and Misconceptions15:00 – Digital Sovereignty and Compliance20:00 – Practical Tips for CISOs and CIOs22:00 – ConclusionAbout Jan Ursi:Jan Ursi leads Keepit's global partnerships, helping organisations embrace the AI-powered cyber resilience era. Keepit is the world's only independent cloud dedicated to SaaS data protection, security, and recovery. Jan has previously built and scaled businesses at Rubrik, UiPath, Nutanix, Infoblox, and Juniper, shaping the future of enterprise cloud, hyper-automation, and data protection.Follow EM360Tech for more insights:Website: www.em360tech.comX: @EM360TechLinkedIn: EM360TechYouTube: EM360Tech

How do you lead through change when innovation is happening at lightning speed? Recorded live at Autodesk University 2025 in Nashville, this conversation with Rachel Tuller, VP Global Channels at Autodesk, explores how data, AI, and culture are redefining success in the partner ecosystem. The discussion dives into what it takes to build trust, communicate effectively, and stay agile in a world where technology and customer expectations are constantly evolving. Highlights from the Conversation Why innovation now centers on customer outcomes, not features How connected data and AI are powering smarter workflows The role of trust and clarity in driving successful change management Why communication is the foundation of every transformation How agility and collaboration keep the industry moving forward together MEET OUR GUEST Rachel Tuller is the Vice President of Global Channels at Autodesk, where she leads global partner strategy, programs, and enablement. With deep expertise in digital transformation, channel development, and customer success, Rachel focuses on building high-trust relationships, aligning partner value with customer outcomes, and preparing the Autodesk ecosystem for the future of AI and data-driven innovation. TODD TAKES Innovation Is About Customer Outcomes The most exciting change is that innovation is no longer framed as features or transactions—it's about outcomes. Partners and technology providers alike are leaning into solving customer problems, improving workflows, and creating measurable impact. That shift from “what's the tool” to “what's the result” is where true transformation happens. Data + AI Should Power Workflows (Not Features) The story this year isn't about buttons—it's about end-to-end workflows driven by connected data and embedded AI. When insights surface in real time, teams move faster and make better calls. Practical AI plus thoughtful services create a multiplier effect for productivity and project success. Trust Fuels Change (Start with the Why) Change management begins with clarity. When leaders communicate the “why” early and often, they build trust that makes adoption possible. Add cultural alignment and open collaboration, and change shifts from something feared to something embraced. That circle of trust is where meaningful progress happens.   More Resources Thanks for listening! Please be sure to leave a rating and/or review and follow up our social accounts. Bridging the Gap Website Bridging the Gap LinkedIn Bridging the Gap Instagram Bridging the Gap YouTube Todd's LinkedIn   Thank you to our sponsors! Graitec North America Graitec North America LinkedIn   Other Relevant Links: Rachel's LinkedIn Autodesk Website

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Michelle Hodges, SVP of Global Channels and Alliances at Barracuda, whose experience spans global channel leadership and transformational partner strategies for some of the world's most innovative SaaS companies. With a legacy of designing, launching, and refining partner ecosystems across private equity-backed and high-growth tech businesses, Michelle shares how to build the channel you actually want, not just the one you inherit.Channel professionals will gain clear strategic insights into how to align partner programs with board-level growth metrics, make transformations sticky through company-wide buy-in, and operationalize partner success through data, iteration, and feedback loops. Michelle delves into balancing AI-powered scalability with human connection, using emerging technologies to empower the MSP community and enhance channel program effectiveness.If you're navigating a digital transformation, redefining partner metrics, or simply want to future-proof your indirect strategy, this episode offers a fresh perspective from one of the industry's most experienced voices. Tune in for practical frameworks and real-world strategies that help you build smarter, higher-performing partner ecosystems._________________________Learn more about Channext

More than 7.5 million global cyber incidents were reported in the first half of 2025, a 19% rise on the same period last year. To combat the surge in attacks, Integrity360 is announcing an exclusive Irish partnership with global bug bounty leader HackerOne. This partnership gives businesses direct local access to a trusted network of more than two million ethical hackers, delivering real-time vulnerability discovery and remediation before threats can be exploited. Cyber attacks are increasing in both sophistication and volume, with large organisations -particularly those with web-facing infrastructure - experiencing relentless attempts to identify and exploit weaknesses. While traditional penetration testing and red teaming remain essential, a well organised bug bounty programme takes cyber security to the next level. Integrity360's collaboration with HackerOne adds an 'always-on' layer of human-led testing, giving enterprises continuous visibility into emerging threats and an attacker's eye view of their systems. Drawing on HackerOne's global community of security researchers, Integrity360 identifies vulnerabilities that automated tools might miss. With access to over two million ethical hackers, security teams can prioritise and remediate critical risks faster - a capability that would be virtually impossible for any single organisation to replicate in-house. Furthermore, you only pay for exposures that are discovered, providing excellent return on investment. The collaboration expands the cyber security testing portfolio of Integrity360, enabling delivery of an end-to-end service that spans scheduled assessments, red teaming, and continuous researcher-led testing. While HackerOne underpins the platform with its unparalleled crowd-powered expertise, Integrity360 ensures seamless integration into clients' security programmes. "Technology alone can't match the creativity and persistence of a determined attacker," said Richard Ford, CTO at Integrity360. "By partnering with HackerOne, we are enabling organisations to tap into a vast, global community of security researchers who continuously probe for weaknesses. This is proactive defence in action, which is designed to uncover and fix issues before they become security incidents." John Addeo, VP of Global Channels at HackerOne, said: "Integrity360 brings deep enterprise security expertise, while our hacker community provides real-world insight that tools alone can't deliver. Together, we help organisations find and fix vulnerabilities faster, reducing their attack surface in an increasingly complex threat environment." The move reflects a wider industry shift from periodic, compliance-driven assessments to continuous, community-powered protection. As cyber threats continue to evolve, the ability to detect and respond to vulnerabilities in real-time will become a critical benchmark for effective cyber defence. See more stories here.

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with one of the channel's most seasoned transformation leaders Alan Butler, VP Global Channels & Alliances at OpenText, to explore what “good” really looks like in channel strategy. With a career that's spanned Sun Microsystems, Dell, Adobe, and now OpenText, our guest shares a rare perspective on what it takes to build, scale, and integrate partner ecosystems that last.We dive into the foundational elements of partner success - from startup grit to enterprise orchestration, including:- How Dell flipped its revenue model from direct to 50% indirect in just five years- Why internal alignment and executive education are non-negotiables in channel growth- How to handle M&A without losing the DNA of the acquired partner ecosystem- The make-or-break role of finance in proving partner value from day one- Why most partner advisory councils fail and how to build one that truly drives change- How to balance short-term targets with long-term investment in emerging partnersWhether you're building a channel from scratch or trying to realign a legacy motion, this episode delivers field-tested insights from someone who's been at the helm through it all.Connect with Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ab530/_________________________Learn more about Channext

http://www.sherylkline.com/blogI had the great pleasure of interviewing Rachel Tuller, Vice President Global Channel Sales at Autodesk. Rachel discusses her career journey, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and overcoming challenges. She highlights her non-linear career path, starting as a technical trainer and evolving through various roles. Rachel credits her success to leveraging transferable skills and the support of mentors like James Mundell. At Autodesk, she emphasizes the importance of understanding the company culture, building trust, and establishing executive relationships. Rachel advised new executives to create a stakeholder map, have a clear plan, and leverage available resources. She stresses the balance between collaboration and confidence in driving success.Key takeaways from this interview:0:01:15 Rachel's family history of professional women inspired her to be a "fearless female" and pursue impactful work that helps others.0:02:40 Rachel's career path has been a "lattice, not a ladder" with many opportunistic moves, and she emphasizes the importance of transferable skills.0:04:38 Rachel advises feeling the fear and taking action despite imposter syndrome, building quiet confidence in one's capabilities.0:10:18 As a woman in technology, Rachel embraced being unique and owning her position, focusing on performance over gender.0:16:09 In her new role at Autodesk, Rachel focused on building trust and credibility by aligning, adapting, and accelerating.0:21:53 Rachel emphasizes the importance of balancing collaboration with confidence, being clear about expectations and owning her expertise.0:25:28 Rachel's advice for new executives includes having a plan, working the plan, and leveraging resources like coaching and mentors.If Rachel's story resonated with you, I'd love to hear yours. Let's connect and explore how you can apply these principles to your leadership journey. Book a call with me today to share your story and take the first step toward fearless leadership.If you're interested in being featured on the Fearless Female Leader podcast, please email me at info@sherylkline.com.

In this Thursday episode of the SMB Community Podcast, host James Kernan talks with Mike Anderson, Director of Global Channels for EZDMark. They discuss the importance of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) in improving email deliverability and protecting domains from spoofing. Mike shares his journey from the car business to technology, and explains how EZDMark's user-friendly analytics platform aids MSPs in managing DMARC concerns and monetizing these services. They highlight the platform's risk assessment tool, which allows MSPs to generate quick, customized risk assessments to attract potential clients. The episode concludes with details on special promotions and the simplicity of onboarding with EZDMark.   Chapter Markers: 00:00 Introduction to SMB Community Podcast 00:54 Meet Mike Anderson from EZDMark 01:58 Mike Anderson's Journey into Technology 03:08 Understanding EZDMark and DMARC 04:33 EZDMark's Unique Features and Benefits 06:34 The Power of EZDMark's Assessment Tool 10:31 Onboarding and Special Promotions 14:06 Final Thoughts and Conclusion   New Book Release: I'm proud to announce the release of my new book, The Anthology of Cybersecurity Experts! This collection brings together 15 of the nation's top minds in cybersecurity, sharing real-world solutions to combat today's most pressing threats. Whether you're an MSP, IT leader, or simply passionate about protecting your data, this book is packed with expert advice to help you stay secure and ahead of the curve. Available now on Amazon! https://a.co/d/f2NKASI   Sponsor Memo: Since 2006, Kernan Consulting has been through over 30 transactions in mergers & acquisitions - and just this past year, we have been involved in six (6). If you are interested in either buying, selling, or valuation information, please reach out. There is alot of activity and you can be a part of it. For more information, reach out at kernanconsulting.com

We speak with Craig Patterson, Senior Vice President of Global Channels at Aryaka Networks, where he leads the company's channel strategy worldwide, enabling alignment across partner sales and marketing teams and programs in North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC). Patterson joined Aryaka Networks as Channel Chief and Vice President of Sales - Americas in September 2021 where he led go-to-market strategies within the agent, reseller and distribution channels in North America, including the launch of the Aryaka Accelerate Global Partner Program. Prior to Aryaka, Patterson was the West Division Vice President for Lumen's indirect channel. In this role, he led all sales and revenue strategy for a $1 billion organization within the Lumen Channel Partner Program and managed more than 100 sales professionals. Before joining Lumen, Patterson was a founding member of the Level 3 Channel Partner Program, where he grew revenue from $0 to $500 million over 15 yearsAryaka has an increasing focus on channels in the APAC region with a commitment and investment in the region in terms of expanding the Aryaka team and partner recruitment. Aryaka have recently hired two senior additions to the team in Hong Kong and Singapore, to gain increased traction in the regional with partners and customers. Aryaka as an organization are doubling down on the SASE market with their partners in APACRecorded by MySecurity Media as media partners to the Canalys APAC Forum, Bali, 2-4 December 2024. #pax8 #mysecuritytv #canalys

If you work in this industry you know how hard it is to keep ahead in a world that always seems to be pivoting. Streaming, fast channels, multi-platform media brands – who can keep up?Well, one fella is Jamie Schouela, President, Global Channels and Media at Blue Ant Media. I caught up with Jamie a few weeks ago in Toronto when I was asked to moderate a CTAM panel on the future of the industry from a cable perspective. He leads the strategic direction and operations for the company's streaming and linear networks, as well as digital, print and consumer event properties. The companies' brands include Love Nature, BBC Earth, T+E, Makeful, HauntTV, Cottage Life and many more.He's also busy spreading Blue Ant content around the world. Here he is, one of the good guys, Jamie Schouela.

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we interview Michelle Ragusa-McBain, VP of Global Channels at SonicWall, about building a successful channel program by listening to partners and acting on their feedback. Michelle explains how SonicWall's "outside-in listening" approach shaped their SecureFirst program, making it more flexible and partner-focused.We dive into the specific changes the SonicWall team made to meet partner needs, like introducing flexible consumption models and offering Market Development Funds (MDF) to support co-marketing efforts. Michelle also shares how trust and long-term relationships have kept SonicWall's partners loyal for decades.Additionally, we discuss the role AI plays in both enabling partners and defending against cyber threats. Michelle explains how SonicWall is using AI to improve support, training, and protection against cyberattacks, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated.Join us as we explore practical ways to strengthen partner programs, use AI effectively, and maintain trust in a competitive industry.Connect with Michelle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleragusamcbain/_________________________Learn more about Channext

With the rebranding of Autodesk University, innovation in construction, and advancements in cloud technology, what lies ahead? Live from Autodesk University 2024, Rachel Tuller of Autodesk joined the podcast to discuss the importance of the company's reinvention, a closer look at the hybrid model of cloud and desktop solutions, and how successful global partnerships are crucial to solve complex customer problems. Rachel Tuller is Vice President, Global Channels at Autodesk. With a background at Cloudera, Rachel carries a history of wins in AI ISV and Cloud Alliances, driving daily success with partners. Her expertise lies in strategic leadership and building high performing teams, skills honed through direct experience with global partner sales and ecosystem strategy. TODD TAKES Reinvention is Key in Construction: In today's construction world, staying the same just isn't an option. The companies that keep pushing forward—updating their tools, refining their processes, and keeping an open mindset—are the ones that thrive. Reinventing continuously helps tackle industry challenges head-on, creating room for exciting new opportunities and growth. Data and AI: Game Changers with a Plan: Data and AI have huge potential to reshape construction, but without a clear plan, they can create more noise than value. The key is to know exactly what data to gather, how to use it, and what insights matter most. When approached strategically, AI and data aren't just trendy tools—they're the powerhouse behind smarter, faster decision-making. Leverage the Power of Partnerships: No company needs to go it alone; in fact, working with trusted software providers and partners is where the magic happens. Partners bring specialized knowledge and solutions that can be fine-tuned to fit local needs, making innovation easier to implement and scale. With the right partners, companies can stay agile, grow stronger, and meet changing demands head-on. Thanks for listening! Please be sure to leave a rating and/or review and follow up our social accounts. Bridging the Gap Website Bridging the Gap LinkedIn Bridging the Gap Instagram Bridging the Gap YouTube Todd's LinkedIn   Thank you to our sponsors! Applied Software Applied Software LinkedIn   Other Relevant Links: Rachel's LinkedIn Autodesk

In this episode of Play the King, Win the Day, host Brad Banyas speaks with John Midtbo, VP of Global Channels and Alliances at airSlate. They discuss the importance of document automation, the role of partnerships in business growth, and how airSlate is positioning itself in the global market. John shares insights on building a successful partner program and the value of collaboration in achieving mutual success. The conversation highlights the innovative solutions airSlate offers and encourages potential partners to engage with the company. Key Takeaways:John Midtbo has 20 years of experience in software and channel programs.Airslate has over 1.2 million customers and 200 million in revenue.The company focuses on product-led growth and automation solutions.Partnerships are crucial for reaching a global market.airSlate's products can streamline various business processes.The company aims to build a best-in-class partner program.Successful partnerships are based on mutual value propositions.airSlate provides extensive support for its partners.The market opportunity for document automation is vast.Engaging with potential partners is a priority for airSlate.Learn More:www.airslate.comPlay the King, Win the Day!*wisdom to power your success.

Vonage Names Kristy Thomas Senior Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances “The channel is a critical part of that growth strategy,” says Kristy Thomas, Senior Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances for Vonage. “Today, the channel is critical to Vonage. A majority of our revenue that comes into our organization is through indirect routes to market. Just two months ago Kristy Thomas returned to Vonage, now as the new leadership role. “We'll continue to invest in the channel as a route to market.” That commitment aligns with Ericsson, which is also committed to the channel. Ericsson completed the acquisition of Vonage in 2022. We learn that Kristy sees a value approach as the way forward in the Vonage's support of the partners and in turn what the partners are offering their customers. “By bringing that value and being an extension to the IT buyer or additional stakeholders within an organization, the relevance of an MSP or technology advisory firm is stronger than it ever has been because there's just so much noise out there. I say that it is also our job at Vonage to educate our partners on market trends, on what's happening from a buyer behavior, what are best practices when buying communications or CX technology so that they can be more relevant to their customers and helping them make an informed decision when there's so much going on.” “Now more than ever, businesses are looking to technology advisory firms or MSP firms to help them make informed decisions on technology buying because innovation is happening so fast,” Kristy adds. With that in mind, Kirsty gives us a glimpse of more opportunities for the partners as we learn about leveraging AI. Visit www.vonage.com

Partner advisory boards (PABs) or councils (PACs) are integral components of many vendor channel programs, serving as crucial platforms for direct and candid dialogue between vendor leadership, channel managers, and partners. These forums allow vendors to gain valuable insights into their current operations and gauge partner sentiment regarding future plans and aspirations. While most vendors acknowledge the significance of PABs in their partner programs, the effectiveness of these forums can vary. Inconsistent execution or a lack of actionable feedback can diminish their value. Successful PABs require careful planning, coordination, active listening, and, most importantly, a genuine commitment from vendors to foster an environment where partners feel encouraged to engage meaningfully. Ivanti, a provider of security and IT management software, exemplifies the impact of a well-executed PAB. Through its robust advisory board, Ivanti gathers crucial insights and direction directly from its partners. In this episode of Changing Channels, Michelle Hodges, Senior Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances, shares her expertise on what it takes to successfully produce and leverage partner advisory boards for mutual benefit. Check out Channelnomics's Partner Advisory Board support resources: PAB Management & Support Services: https://channelnomics.com/pab/ Partner Advisory Boards: A User Manual: https://channelnomics.com/partner-advisory-boards-a-vendor-user-manual/ Choosing the Right Feedback Event: https://channelnomics.com/choosing-the-right-event/   Follow us, Like us, and Subscribe! Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/Channelnomics     About Larry Walsh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmwalsh2112/ X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/lmwalsh_CN Official Bio: https://channelnomics.com/team/larry-walsh/   About Michelle Hodges LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellewhodges/   Changing Channels is a production of Channelnomics, a brand of 2112 Enterprises LLC   Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics — the voice of thought leadership — we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.    © 2112 Enterprises LLC

Learn how to drive channel success by leveraging AI with Craig Patterson, SVP of Global Channels at Aryaka. Craig brings his wealth of experience to reveal how Aryaka's channel-first strategy drives over 90% of its revenue by fostering trusted relationships with enterprise clients. Learn about the transition from transactional to value-driven engagements, the changing dynamics in global markets, especially Europe, and the critical role flexible purchasing options play in meeting customer needs.We venture into the future of AI in channel go-to-market strategies. Whether it's prospecting, customer engagement, or support, find out how AI is making sales processes more efficient and effective. Don't miss this packed episode full of actionable insights!Connect with Craig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/globalchannel/_________________________Learn more about Channext

Software manufacturers routinely tie up with resellers to get their foot into the federal market. So why would a software company that is already in every department, sign-up with another reseller after 50 years in the market? It may have to do with artificial intelligence. For more on software distribution and technology trends, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with the Vice President of Global Channels for SAS, John Carey. And with the VP of Intelligence and Innovative Solutions at Carahsoft, Michael Shrader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Software manufacturers routinely tie up with resellers to get their foot into the federal market. So why would a software company that is already in every department, sign-up with another reseller after 50 years in the market? It may have to do with artificial intelligence. For more on software distribution and technology trends, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with the Vice President of Global Channels for SAS, John Carey. And with the VP of Intelligence and Innovative Solutions at Carahsoft, Michael Shrader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this interview, Rob Scott from UC Today is joined by Mark Bunnell, Chief Operating Officer from NUWAVE and Todd Surdey, Head of Global Channels & Business Development at Zoom.Together, they explore Zoom's Distributor Program for Partners and how NUWAVE is streamlining the experience for partners who are looking to fully leverage the Zoom Phone and Bring Your Own Carrier offerings.Discussion points include:What is the Zoom Partner Opportunity and why is it currently in high demand?How can partners profit from using Zoom's platform?As a key partner of Zoom, what benefits does NUWAVE offer to other partners?What type of partners would find Zoom's Distributor Program most beneficial?NUWAVE's solution explained - features and partner benefits

Wendy Petty is the Chief Revenue Officer at WorkFusion, a leading provider of automation solutions for Fortune 500 enterprises, banks, and financial services companies. She has a career in sales spanning over 30 years, with experience in advanced technical expertise, developing influential relationships, and sales education. Some of Wendy's prior positions include Chief Sales Officer at Erwin Inc., Executive Director of Global Channels at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, and 10 years at FalconStor Software. In this episode… Enterprise sales are inherently challenging with a high barrier of entry. These prospects tend to be exceedingly reserved and hesitant to invest in new ideas. For sales teams in this field, it takes an extra level of strategy and dedication to ensure a close. Wendy Petty has firsthand experience with these difficulties. Her extensive career has led her to a leadership position at WorkFusion, working in the world of enterprise sales. She has led herself and her team to continued growth, and now explains how she did it. In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, Alex Gluz interviews Wendy Petty, the Chief Revenue Officer at WorkFusion, to talk about the most important aspects of enterprise sales. They discuss her career, some of the greatest lessons she's learned, and building relationships with potential clients. They also discuss the role metrics and marketing play in sales.

On this episode, Steve Stewart, Head of Global Channels at Smartsheet — a project and work management and collaboration platform — speaks about how Smartsheet went about building their SaaS partner program journey. When they first started fleshing it out, they only had resell partners. Today they invest in high-value-add solution partners. Smartsheet boasts 185 professional services partners with YOY growth of 284%. They have grown this type of partner in a big way because not only is it core to the value proposition but also core to having a fantastic ecosystem of services delivery for both the company and the partner community. Step number one was asking the right questions and interviewing a lot of partners and then defining what it is they wanted from their partners. Steve explains the Smartsheet partner strategy and partner types and goes through their ideal partner profile and how their channel OKRs align with strategy. He also discusses the Smartsheet partner ecosystem with best-in-class partner support, new partner learning pathways and selling channel value-add internally. Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us at admin@cloudsoftwareassociation.com for information. #saas #software #cloud Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series I am joined by Daren Finney, Senior Vice President, Global Channels for Mitel. Our conversation takes a look at how customer lifestyle management can be a game-changer for UC vendors and also their customers. In our conversation we discussed the following: Daren gives a short overview on Mitel, and why customers continue to choose Mitel A look into Customer Lifestyle Management (CLM) and how it impacts Mitel and the UC space A walk through on how the Customer Lifestyle Management changed during Covid Why customers should get excited about CLMs and what the benefits are to end-user customers It was a great conversation and one you won't want to miss. To learn more about Mitel, check out their website here.  

On this episode, we had Daren Finney, Senior VP Global Channels at Mitel on the Channel Chat podcast. Mitel is a global market leader in business communications. Founded nearly 50 years ago, they help businesses and service providers connect, collaborate, and provide innovative services to their customers. Their innovation and communications experts serve business users in more than 100 countries.   We got great insights from Darren, as he shared how to cultivate a culture of hybrid working, what a good partner program looks like, and why he made the move to leave Citrix. There were also some pretty raw opinions on topics as well which might get Marc Sumner in trouble and DM's coming in You won't want to miss this! Streaming on all platforms, follow Channel Chat Media for the latest podcasts and news! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6pTjEZS​​

Whether it's expanding to new markets or tackling crises… Everything is easier with the right partner by your side. Just ask Brian Allison, Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances at Snow Software, whose career has spanned everything from scrappy startups to leviathan corporations — and he has never seen one that couldn't be improved by the right partners. Join us as we discuss: - How to categorize partners - The 3 C's of a good partner - The challenges of scaling — and how partners help you overcome them - Why customer success is the key to partner success Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you: - #121 Aligning Ecosystem Strategy with Your Customer as the North Star with Lara Caimi, Chief Partner Officer, ServiceNow - #122 There's No Easy Button For Partnering with Nicole Napiltonia, VP Of Alliances and OEM Sales, at Barracuda - #106 The Secrets to Managing Alliances Like Microsoft with David Totten, Chief Technology Officer, US Partner Ecosystem at Microsoft - #97 Why Quality Always Beats Quantity in Software Ecosystems with Tom Roberts, Senior Vice President at the Global Partner Organization over at SAP. Links & Resources - Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing. - Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast. - Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering. - Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog. - Download the Best Practices Guide for Ecosystem Business Management - Download the Ultimate Guide for Partner Incentives and Market Development Funds To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: chip@workspan.com This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

As we head into 2022, let's take a deep dive into the state of the channel and how channel partners perceive Zero Trust. In a conversation that takes us from North America to LATAM and EMEA and APJ, we explore the value and importance of channel partners in spreading adoption of Zero Trust.Guests:Fiona Doak, Director of Channel Sales EMEA, Appgate; Tina Gravel, SVP of Global Channels and Alliances, AppgateModerator:George Wilkes, VP of Demand Generation, AppgateVisit www.appgate.com for more Zero Trust security resources.

Scott Cunningham is the Senior Director of Global Channels at OwnBackup, the leading data backup, archiving, and sandbox seeding app on the Salesforce App. In this episode, Scott Cunningham delves into how to strategically create influence, where to find partners who will accelerate the sales process, and why employers need to start using incentives other than gift cards. Visit Salesloft.com for show notes and insights from this episode.

Eric Rosenkranz serves as the Executive Channel and Partner Engineering Leader on Google's North America Senior Leadership Team. As the senior Americas leader on the Global Channels leadership team, he leads a multibillion-dollar operation that has achieved exponential growth multiple times since joining in 2016. Eric also Chairs the North American Partner Governance Council and North America Partner Advisory council at Google.

Tina discusses the benefits of a zero trust model

On this episode, we had Ben Fallon, Senior Director, Global Channels at Cisco Meraki on the Channel Chat podcast. Cisco Meraki is a cloud-managed IT company, headquartered in San Francisco California. Their products include wireless, switching, security, enterprise mobility management, and security cameras, all centrally managed from the web. Marc Sumner sat down with Ben to discuss his journey into Cisco Meraki, sharing his advice for candidates who are looking to get into the IT Channel, and what sets Cisco Meraki apart from other Vendors! You won't want to miss it.

Join David Nour and Randy Seidl for this episode of the Sales Community Tech Sales Insights podcast with Cheryl Cook, SVP of Global Partner Marketing at Dell Technologies. Beyond her main global responsibilities for branding, partner program marketing, channel events, partner communications, and MDF/BDF program investments and execution, Cheryl drives long-term partner marketing strategy, together with Global Alliances, OEM, and global and regional business teams. A vocal advocate for the partner community, Cheryl is a 20+ year partner veteran, known as an innovative, collaborative leader who creates compelling business solutions that accelerate partners' success. Prior to her current role, Cheryl served as Vice President, Global Channels and Alliances, leading channel strategy for the company worldwide. Her responsibilities included setting Dell's partner strategy company-wide, as well as developing and executing channel programs, training, certification, and global marketing programs that enabled partners to grow their business with Dell. Cheryl and her team contributed to the growth of Dell's global channel business from 33% to over 40% of Dell's total revenue. Prior to running Dell's channel business, Cheryl served as Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, where she was responsible for the go-to-market strategy and execution for Dell storage, server, networking, and related software businesses. Cheryl has more than 25 years of IT and high-tech experience. A contributor to Fortune Magazine's 50 Most Powerful Women's community, Cheryl is an active proponent of women in business and technology. Cheryl is the founder and executive sponsor of the Dell Technologies Women's Partner Network, an initiative that supports and empowers our community of women partners. Cheryl also contributes to Dell's Women in Action and Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network. Honored by CRN numerous times as one of the Power 100 Women of the Channel, 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs and Top 100 Channel Sales Leaders, as well as Channel Partners Top Gun 51, Cheryl serves on the board of directors for ARC Document Solutions, is a member of Channel Focus Club 50 and holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Florida. Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

AppGates SVP of Global Channels and Alliances Tina Gravel joins co-host Andy Bonillo to discuss her journey in tech and cyber security. She talks about her passion of getting more women in cyber security how and we can improve the talent supply chain. Tina also talks about zero trust and how organizations can leverage technologies and processes they already have to begin the zero trust journey and not make companies feel like they are boiling the ocean. We finished up the show with Tina sharing her personal battle of depression as a result of the pandemic and how she hoped to help others by contributing a chapter in the book Leading Through the Pandemic. All this and much much more in Episode #177 of TaskForce 7 Radio.

AppGates SVP of Global Channels and Alliances Tina Gravel joins co-host Andy Bonillo to discuss her journey in tech and cyber security. She talks about her passion of getting more women in cyber security how and we can improve the talent supply chain. Tina also talks about zero trust and how organizations can leverage technologies and processes they already have to begin the zero trust journey and not make companies feel like they are boiling the ocean. We finished up the show with Tina sharing her personal battle of depression as a result of the pandemic and how she hoped to help others by contributing a chapter in the book Leading Through the Pandemic. All this and much much more in Episode #177 of TaskForce 7 Radio.

  Rob Spee is an experienced channel and alliance executive, who helps clients manage strategic partnerships in order to accelerate growth and revenue. Having built successful channel sales teams from scratch and leading teams of 50+ channel sales and marketing professionals, he is highly skilled and knowledgeable in this topic.   In this episode, Rob discusses top techniques to fulfill selling-potential through channels and common mistakes people make with their channel strategies.    Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:   Maximizing selling through channels Hiring the right people for success Creating strategic company goals Understanding the right channels for you   About the Guest: As the Regional Vice President for Channel Sales at OutSystems, Rob Spee utilizes high-performing channel strategies to increase growth and revenue for the company. He also is the Channel Chief and Podcast Host for Channel Journeys Inc., where channel experts share their career stories and things they’ve learned along the way. Prior to joining OutSystems, Rob was the Head of Global Channels at SAS and the Director of Distributor Channels at Carbonite, where he had opportunities to grow his increasing knowledge of channel strategies, and execute new programs and revenue streams.    Subscribe to Rob's podcast at channeljourneys.com Connect with Rob on LinkedIn and Twitter   Listen to more episodes of the Outside Sales Talk here and watch the video here!   If you love the Outside Sales Talk podcast, you’ll also love Badger’s newsletters!  Our 95,000+ subscribers stay at the top of their game with actionable tips from top sales experts.   Are you in? Subscribe to Badger Maps’ newsletters now! 

Tina Gravel is an award-winning executive with more than 27 years of experience in the IT outsourcing, cloud, data center, security and SaaS industries. She is currently SVP of Global Channels and Alliances with Appgate, the leader in security and analytics products and services for zero trust. A highly rated public speaker, her talks are often memorable and sparked with humor and personal stories. Tina has a knack for making topics that are highly technical easier for those not technically inclined to understand. Scott Schober is a #cybersecurity and wireless technology expert, author of Hacked Again and Cybersecurity is Everybody's Business, host of 2 Minute CyberSecurity Briefing video podcast and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems who appears regularly on Bloomberg TV, Fox Business & Fox News, CGTN America, Canadian TV News, as well as CNN, CBS Morning Show, MSNBC, CNBC, The Blaze, WPIX as well as local and syndicated Radio including Sirius/XM & Bloomberg Radio and NPR.

Tina Gravel is an award-winning executive with more than 27 years of experience in the IT outsourcing, cloud, data center, security and SaaS industries. She is currently SVP of Global Channels and Alliances with Appgate, the leader in security and analytics products and services for zero trust. A highly rated public speaker, her talks are often memorable and sparked with humor and personal stories. Tina has a knack for making topics that are highly technical easier for those not technically inclined to understand. Scott Schober is a #cybersecurity and wireless technology expert, author of Hacked Again and Cybersecurity is Everybody's Business, host of 2 Minute CyberSecurity Briefing video podcast and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems who appears regularly on Bloomberg TV, Fox Business & Fox News, CGTN America, Canadian TV News, as well as CNN, CBS Morning Show, MSNBC, CNBC, The Blaze, WPIX as well as local and syndicated Radio including Sirius/XM & Bloomberg Radio and NPR.

Sales-led partners are great at landing new SaaS customers. But that's only the first step in driving customer success and building a low-churn recurring revenue stream. Steve Stewart, Head of Global Channels at SmartSheet, shares how to build a services-led channel to drive the adoption and expansion your SaaS offering.

In this episode, Max Clark talks with Rick Ribas, LogMeIn’s VP of Global Channels, on how LogMeIn is providing solutions at the forefront of the remote work revolution. Rick offers insight into how LogMeIn has provided additional solutions for its customers in response to the global pandemic.

Mercer Rowe -- Vice President, Global Channels and Alliances at Commvault -- has his own take on the dramatic shifts in the channel landscape over the past few years. And he outlines how he uses his "Three Ps" to drive partner success in this environment 

Upwards of 70% of global revenue comes from third-party channels, making channels incredibly important, However, most organizations haven't reshaped their channel programs to meet changing buyer trends and the need for proper channel sales enablement . In this interview with Jay mcBain, Principal Analyst for Global Channels at research and advisory firm Forrester., we discuss significant channel enablement research findings from Jay and his team, what strategic changes leaders are making now to address new opportunities, and why the Forrester team believes 2020 is THE year for Channel Enablement. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymcbain/ #Forrester #channelsales #channelenablement #salesenablement #contentmarketing #influencermarketing #valueselling #resellers #indirectsales #salestools #sellingtools #salestech #salestechnology #evolvedselling #research #insights

Jay McBain, Principal Analyst of Global Channels at Forrester joined us on the Sunny Side Up podcast hosted by DemandMatrix in this episode! Jay leads Forrester's research and advisory for global channels, alliances, and partnerships. In this episode, our CEO Meetul Shah discuss the future of channel marketing within the B2B and Tech marketing domain with Jay , given his extensive background in channel leadership, sales, marketing, and operations, …so well, there’s lots to uncover and learn from this conversation!

With the advent of AI, contact center agents will no longer be left to fish around knowledge bases or external data sources. Instead, they’ll have all the information they need delivered to them immediately. In this episode, we interview John Bourne, Senior VP of Global Channels and Strategic Alliances at Verint and Dan Burkland, President of Five9. Listen in to hear John and Dan talk about how artificial intelligence will inevitably reduce churn amongst contact center agents while also providing the ultimate customer experience.

This episode features Josh Lewis, Vice President of Global Channels at Alteryx. Learn how Josh is adding fuel to a hyper-growth engine by driving breakthrough channel performance. This podcast is loaded with tips on recruiting, culture, and hiring that you can use to accelerate channel performance in your own company.

How to Accelerate Channel Performance in Hyper-Growth CJ12. This episode features Josh Lewis, Vice President of Global Channels at Alteryx, an analytics firm on hyper-growth. The channel strategy that got Alteryx to a $50M company wasn’t going to scale and continue fueling hyper-growth. The channel program reached a plateau. As a result, Josh needed to … Josh Lewis: Driving Breakthrough Channel Performance Read More »

The internet of things has tremendous potential, but success will be found only by those who are strategic in their approach. Selecting the right vertical, creating partnerships and leveraging service resources to carry the technology is critical. Join innovators from Intel, Microsoft and Arrow as they discuss how to engage in the unique sales motion that is necessary to grow your IoT business. Compare Ashish Parikh VP, Global IoT Platforms and Solutions, Arrow Ashish Parikh leads the internet of things platforms and solutions in the IoT global solutions organization at Arrow Electronics. Parikh and his team are responsible for assessing and integrating with partners to develop comprehensive IoT solution offerings for OEM and enterprise customers. This includes development of Arrow Connect, a SaaS middleware platform for device and data management. Parikh’s solutions team is also responsible for strategy and marketing of horizontal and vertical technology for customers looking to either build or use IoT solutions. With over 25 years of experience in computer aided system design, contact centers, unified communications and IoT, Parikh has developed, managed and deployed software products. His experience spans product development, product management, professional services, channel enablement, strategy, business development and go-to market across start-ups, mid-sized and large organizations. Parikh received his bachelor’s and master’s in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Parikh currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not engaged in professional pursuits, Parikh enjoys spending time with his two sons and wife, cycling, hiking, photography and tinkering. Hosts: Rod O'Shea Worldwide IoT Partners and Channels Director, Intel As Worldwide Director of IoT partners and channels, Rod O'Shea is responsible for ensuring Intel delivers compelling strategies to drive industry leadership and foster global innovation. This includes engaging a world-class ecosystem of partners to accelerate IoT transformation. Rod has held a variety of positions within both Intel’s sales teams and its product divisions. Prior to his current role, Rod was General Manager of Direct and Channel Sales for Intel’s Europe region. Rod holds a First Class Honours Degree in Operational Research and Computing, and in his spare time enjoys outdoor pursuits, traveling and reading. He is now based in Phoenix, Arizona, having recently relocated from London, England. Nicole Denil General Manager of Global Channels, CDS IoT, Microsoft Nicole Denil is General Manager, Global Channels for IOT. She has been with Microsoft for 14 years, and has held positions across Latin America, Cloud and Enterprise, OEMs, and ISVs. Prior to IoT, she was the Devices Sales Director and led the cloud and enterprise strategy for Latin America. She was a pioneer in launching Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, and previously was a co-founder and VP of Sales and Marketing at Sitemasher, a SaaS cloud-based content management system that was acquired by Salesforce.com. Prior to joining Microsoft, Nicole served Rockwell’s Automation and Software divisions for 10 years. Nicole tallies more than 24 years of experience in high-tech business and has a Master’s Degree in International Business.

The internet of things has tremendous potential, but success will be found only by those who are strategic in their approach. Selecting the right vertical, creating partnerships and leveraging service resources to carry the technology is critical. Join innovators from Intel, Microsoft and Arrow as they discuss how to engage in the unique sales motion that is necessary to grow your IoT business. Compare Ashish Parikh VP, Global IoT Platforms and Solutions, Arrow Ashish Parikh leads the internet of things platforms and solutions in the IoT global solutions organization at Arrow Electronics. Parikh and his team are responsible for assessing and integrating with partners to develop comprehensive IoT solution offerings for OEM and enterprise customers. This includes development of Arrow Connect, a SaaS middleware platform for device and data management. Parikh’s solutions team is also responsible for strategy and marketing of horizontal and vertical technology for customers looking to either build or use IoT solutions. With over 25 years of experience in computer aided system design, contact centers, unified communications and IoT, Parikh has developed, managed and deployed software products. His experience spans product development, product management, professional services, channel enablement, strategy, business development and go-to market across start-ups, mid-sized and large organizations. Parikh received his bachelor’s and master’s in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Parikh currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not engaged in professional pursuits, Parikh enjoys spending time with his two sons and wife, cycling, hiking, photography and tinkering. Hosts: Rod O'Shea Worldwide IoT Partners and Channels Director, Intel As Worldwide Director of IoT partners and channels, Rod O'Shea is responsible for ensuring Intel delivers compelling strategies to drive industry leadership and foster global innovation. This includes engaging a world-class ecosystem of partners to accelerate IoT transformation. Rod has held a variety of positions within both Intel’s sales teams and its product divisions. Prior to his current role, Rod was General Manager of Direct and Channel Sales for Intel’s Europe region. Rod holds a First Class Honours Degree in Operational Research and Computing, and in his spare time enjoys outdoor pursuits, traveling and reading. He is now based in Phoenix, Arizona, having recently relocated from London, England. Nicole Denil General Manager of Global Channels, CDS IoT, Microsoft Nicole Denil is General Manager, Global Channels for IOT. She has been with Microsoft for 14 years, and has held positions across Latin America, Cloud and Enterprise, OEMs, and ISVs. Prior to IoT, she was the Devices Sales Director and led the cloud and enterprise strategy for Latin America. She was a pioneer in launching Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, and previously was a co-founder and VP of Sales and Marketing at Sitemasher, a SaaS cloud-based content management system that was acquired by Salesforce.com. Prior to joining Microsoft, Nicole served Rockwell’s Automation and Software divisions for 10 years. Nicole tallies more than 24 years of experience in high-tech business and has a Master’s Degree in International Business.

Can one sector of a business drive change in an entire channel? Though the IT channel is has been around for many years, it is changing rapidly to a integrated solution based model.  One of the most significant change agents is the urgent need to integrate information security and cybersecurity into all IT products and services. Bruce Johnson heads up Global Channels at BlueVoyant, a next generation cybersecurity provider built on a threat intelligence platform. BlueVoyant has leaders from diverse backgrounds, from executives at Morgan Stanley to members of the NSA and FBI. Bruce and his team at BlueVoyant have seen first hand the widespread impact that information security and cybersecurity concerns have had on sales channels.  If a company is in the technology space, they need to have measures in place to protect their own information as well as the information of their clients. BlueVoyant helps neutralize those threats. Bruce has experience working all over the globe, so we sat down with him to learn more about the state of the sales channel in North America, the differences between the North American Market and the European Market, and where he sees rooms for improvement in these channels.

For around a year now, Jay McBain has been the Principal Analyst for Global Channels at Forrester Research, a position built upon a distinguished career partner marketing. In addition to his work with Forrester, Jay is an accomplished speaker, author and innovator in the IT industry. TCMA market is growing because B2B2C marketing professionals see distributed and local marketing as key to influencing new buyers. In this new world, having super squared-away marketing is no longer a nice-to-have.

Karl Fairbach, Head of Global Channels at SAP and Deepider Sahni, Senior VP at AMI Patners: INSIGHTS MATTER: Successful SAP Partners Using Cloud Technology

Narrator: Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Jen Spencer, as she explores how to super charges your sales, and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast, The fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners. Jen: Hi everybody. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer. And today, I am joined by Travis Smith who is Technology, Global Channels and Regional Vice President for HMI Performance Incentives. Welcome Travis. Travis: Hi Jen. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Jen: It's great to have you. And for those of you listening who don't know Travis has a lot going on. So, in addition to his role at HMI Performance Incentives, he's also the CEO and Founder of Move the Channel, which we're gonna talk about, and CEO and Founder of TribeVest. So we're gonna get into a lot of good channel talk. But first, can you tell us a little bit about Move the Channel, because I know that's something you're really passionate about. I'd love to get a quick overview of what this is. Travis: You bet. Absolutely. Again, thanks for having me Jen, and good to be here with all your listeners. Move the Channel, absolutely is something I'm passionate about, and it's hard to believe it started eight, almost nine years ago. And in the way that it came to be was…of course, you know, I come from the technology space. So worked with a number of manufacturers and developers, worked for some distributors, was even a VP of sales for a system integrator and re-seller. So, along the way I had met a ton of friends. You know, colleagues, partners, and people I liked and really respected in the channel marketing and channel sales space. And, as you know in technology, there's a lot of moving that goes around, so it's sometimes hard to keep track of everybody. And so, I was playing around in this new thing called LinkedIn. You gotta remember this is 2010. Jen: Right. Travis: So it was kind of a very new...it's hard to believe. Jen: Right. Travis: In particularly, groups were even more new or more foreign to some of us. What I saw was that it was an opportunity to create a group, a community of old friends that I had met and worked with over the years. And so, I came up with the name. I'm convinced it's dumb luck, but it's a little bit of the genius of what has become Move the Channel community, and that's the name, Move the Channel. And we...I invited probably 40, 50 of these people in my network. Again, as a way to kind of keep in touch, and really, not just keep in touch but it turned out to be this network of friends that supported each other, collaborated, opened doors for each other. We even went as far as calling ourselves the Move the Channel Mafia, which I'm glad we didn't do. Sounds exciting doesn't it? Jen: I know. Travis: But, you know, it didn't take long. Here was this tight-knit group of 50 of us. And before we knew it we had 50, and then we had 100, and 1,000, and then, you know, 4,000. And now we have over 6,000 channel marketing, channel sales professionals worldwide. Jen: It's awesome. Travis: And that's how we came to be. Jen: I love it. And I just love, you know, your mission, the vision of it, you know, really trying to cultivate a community. And a lot of people try, and it doesn't always work. And so, I think you got in early like you said. You've kept it very helpful, it's organic. And I think that it's authentic. And I think that's part of why it's been so successful. Do you have like a success story about channel leaders who have been part of this community? Anything that you can share, like an anecdote of something really cool that's come out of it? Travis: You bet. And you nailed it. If you were to go try to start a group today, there's just so much noise and so much out there, it's hard to stand out. So, you know, credit a lot to the name, which I think captured a lot of people's attention and creativity. And the timing of it, getting in first, was obviously a big deal. I think we were, if not the first, one of the first groups dedicated to channel marketing and channel sales. Over the years we've really just been blown away by the impact that Move the Channel, and the reach that Move the Channel has been able to have. And there's...you know, I think about the successes out there, and all the channel leaders in the community. I mean, every time you see these lists of the channel chiefs, the women in the channel, at anytime they're kind of recognizing leadership in channel marketing and channel sales. There's a really good chance that they're a part of this community, whether it's in a Move the Channel group, or our movethechannel.com. But, you know, what we're probably most proud of is just all of the connections that have led to business successes in this group. It's impossible to measure, but I can't tell you how many stories I hear about two people, two leaders getting together, you know, connecting, finding each other from the group or Move the Channel community, and connecting and helping each other. Look at their respective channels from a different angle, through a different lens. And so we don't take credit for these big events that happen, or huge successes, but we like to take a little bit of credit when they actually...those connections were made in the Move the Channel. And a lot of, you know, finding new hires, more teammates, and even vendors. Finding vendors that have helped them achieve their goals, getting referrals to vendors that have helped them achieve their goals. So, you know, there's a lot of specific people that come to mind, but I think highlighting the success of the community is what I'm most proud of. Jen: Well, I think it's definitely something to be proud of. And maybe people listening here, well, if they haven't found Move the Channel yet, they'll go join that community and start reaping the benefits of it as well. Let's talk about HMI Performance Incentives as your, kind of that's your day job, right? That's your main gig. So tell us a little bit about that. And I really wanna learn how you've seen incentives really put to use in the channel. Because it's a big question, you know, people talk about incentivizing sales reps, gamifying experiences, incentivizing your channel. Channel sales reps are, you know, they're just their sales reps that are just not working all the time for you, right. So I'll stop talking. You tell me more about HMI. Travis: You bet. Absolutely. Yeah, you're right. You know, and there's a lot of buzz words out there. It's tough to know what's the appropriate strategy when it comes to engaging, not with just your channel partner, right? And I think of the channel partner at the organizational level. And then there's the channel sales person, the person, the human that works for the partner organization, or the partner sales engineer, or customer support. And HMI, gosh, it's such an exciting company right now. Even though we've been around for 35 years, we really are at an exciting point. We continue to innovate and move the incentive world forward. You know, Jen, when most people think of incentives, they think of the reward. And don't get me wrong, the reward is so critical. If you don't have the right reward, and the reward isn't motivating, your strategy is dead on arrival. Jen: Yeah. Travis: And more than ever, the reward options are more compelling to your target audience. You know, we're seeing huge trends towards experiences, and sporting events. You know, pick out not just merchandise or things like that. You can actually pick out the event, the theater, the summer concert. And don't just stop there but pick the date, the venue, the seat. And what about booking a hotel, and a shuttle to the show, you know, all this online in the incentive program, real time. And it's really, really cool. But let's be honest, I mean, compelling rewards are the baseline, you know, that's just the beginning. And I think what's most exciting that we're seeing at HMI is how channel incentives are solving big problems, you know, big challenges in the channel. And again, most people don't think of incentives like solving challenges. Jen: Right. Do you have an example, like an interesting use case you've seen for a particular partner program? Travis: Yeah, there's a lot of them that come to mind. You know, when I think of these challenges that we're solving, I think of…you know, the three that come to mind that are most common out there is the manufacturer distributor, either, A, doesn't know who's selling their stuff. They might know the partner that they've signed up to distribute or sell their solutions, but they don't necessarily know the sales person on the front line. And so, you know, they don't even have a database to communicate to them. And that's one challenge. The second challenge is you know who these people are. At least you have their contact information, but you don't really have any insight into them. You don't know how they're selling it, or what else they might be selling, or how your solutions might be complimenting their total solution that they're bringing to their customers. And then, C, you know, the third would be insight. They know who the customers are, they have a pretty good insight into their business, but they don't have...are they really winning the engagement, you know, the mind share, and grabbing the mind share and wallet share of these partners? And, you know, HMI has a pretty, really cool story to tell around solving these problems through channels and incentives. So for example, if you were looking to bring in a new, you know, someone that you didn't know. You don't have their information, but they're supposed to be selling your stuff, but you wanna communicate to them. It's much easier to get them to come sign up and register for an incentive program than it is a partner portal or something like that. Jen: Right. Travis: Right. And I know you guys understand why the indirect sales force are just not going to those types of applications. And therefore, you can't really engage with them very well with the traditional partner portal. But anyway, you know, an incentive program, it's pretty easy to not only get them to come register, but to surrender all sorts of information. Even maybe competitive information on who else they're selling. But anyway, back to your main question, you know, I think if I was gonna kind of single out one impressive program out there that just comes to mind, it's with my buddy Todd Owens over at QLogic and Cavium. Who's probably one of the...Jen, I've got to introduce you to him if you don't know him. He's one of the brightest and most strategic thinkers in the channel as far as I can tell. But what he did was he took HMI and his program and turned a traditional incentive program on its head, where most incentive programs are at the core incentivizing for sales. He doesn't reward for any actual sales but rewards all for engagement and enablement. So things like watching a 90-second video and taking a quick quiz, setting an appointment with one of his sales engineers in the region. So there's all these kind of other things that he's measuring and tracking, and ultimately giving rewards out for, which has been really cool. Of course there's a direct correlation between the people that are engaged in doing these things, and the sales that come in the end. Jen: I love that. Yeah, you have to introduce us, because I love the idea of incentivizing. Not the end result, but the behaviors that you know are gonna lead to the end result. So that's awesome. Love it. I want to ask you about your time at ProfitStars. So you were at ProfitStars before you joined HMI. When you were there, you were really in the thick of it, living, you know, day-to-day strategic alliances, identifying, recruiting, on-boarding, and then managing those partners. I'd love to hear some of the biggest struggles that you had in executing your job effectively, because a lot of our listeners are living that life right now. Travis: You bet. Yes. You know, but before HMI and Move the Channel, that was my world. You know, that was the world I was living. And I mentioned working for a number of manufacturers and distributors. And so, a few years ago, I was actually recruited back to that world where they wanted me to run their strategic alliances and roll out partner programs. And was just an incredibly awesome and exciting initiative…for those of you who don't know ProfitStars, it's part of Jack Henry, the $1.8 billion software company that sells through banking channels, so banks and credit unions. And then ProfitStars is the division that sells through all the other partners. So everybody that's not a bank or credit union. And that was the division I was in. And it was pretty easy, because the name was so well-known and they're so respected. You know, getting a meeting with the owner or CEO to sign them up as a partner wasn't a difficult part. And, you know, the CEO and the partner got the value prop that ProfitStars and Jack Henry were bringing to the table. So closing the partner, and you know, recruiting partners was a little bit the easy part. I know that not everybody has that luxury, but that was the case. And it turned out that, you know, the biggest challenge wasn't finding and signing up the partner. It was, you know, how can we engage with that new partner's front line. The sales people, the account managers. Jen, as you know, they're the ones that have the influence over the sale. Jen: Yeah. Travis: So that was our challenge, you know, and that was the fun part. And had a lot of good success, and very proud of the work there. But, you know, it's not something you solve and say, "Oh, we're engaged with the front line and sales people check." Jen: Yeah. Travis: It's something that you're always working on. Jen: Right. Travis: You're always, you know, making sure that you continue to engage and have their mind share. Jen: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, speaking of that kind of engagement and results that you get. You know something we talk about quite often here is that 80/20 rule in the channel where, you know, right, 80% of revenue comes from 20% of partners, or even more. You know, even 90/10 sometimes, or more often, lately it seems that we're hearing that. And a lot of that goes back to recruitment, and then how you're engaging, how you're maintaining mind share. You know, what are your thoughts on this principle? Is it something we just have to accept, that this is just the way it's gonna be? Is there a way to avoid it? Love to hear your thoughts on that topic, because I know there are people that definitely fall into both camps. Travis: Sure, sure. Yep. There are people out there that just accept it, and the statistics would be tough to argue that. But, gosh, great question. We've seen though, HMI specifically. I think we're uniquely positioned to help with this dilemma. You know, here's the thing, it's way easier to move up, you know move up an existing customer, a partner, than it is to find and train a new one. And, you know, recruitment and out there finding new partners always needs to be part of your plan. But, if we could just take a look at that middle 60, you know that middle 60%, and focus on them. You know, there's a great opportunity to move them up to that next level. And the challenge has between with performance incentives and channel incentives is a lot of companies kind of roll out these blanket reward programs, right? And when you do that, you have the same 20% hitting those goals and enjoying the rewards, or the president's club trip to Hawaii. And, you know, taking a page out of Allbound's book here, you know, it's all about…today, it's all about personalizing it, and customizing it to each individual person. So, to be honest, the technology wasn't there five years ago. But today, literally, each person that logs in to, you know, an HMI system for example, has a completely unique experience. You know, they see their unique goal or threshold, or unique promotion that's available to them because they sell a certain product or in a certain region, or there's unique rewards available to them. You know, all depending on their demographics or how we've segmented the customer/partner database. So, and then those goals are based on how much they sold from the previous quarter, or how much they sold from the previous year. It's not this, you know, "You have to sell this for us to get our attention," it's, "If you show us progress, we're gonna invest back in you." Jen: Awesome. Travis: And we call this intimacy at scale. You like that? Jen: I do like that. I do like that. Travis: I'm trying to get it to stick. Jen: No, I like that because I think it's something that; you've hit on something that really plagues, you know, a lot of sales and marketing professionals. And the tactics that really work well tend to be ones that are very hard to scale. Because as soon as you start scaling something, you start automating it, it makes it impersonal. And then, you lose that effect, right? Like, you think about the experience, the feeling you get if someone takes the time to write a handwritten note to you, right? And so, I like getting this note, right? Well, then it becomes, let's just e-mail everybody, right? And then it's just another piece of noise in your inbox. And so I like that, I like that idea of intimacy at scale. Yeah. I'm a fan. Travis: Right on. No, that was an awesome perspective. You're right. You know those things that work we try to scale them, and then in the process, we lose the personal touch. And that's usually what it is. It's the personalization that we lose. But, you know, I think technology is finally there. We can still personalize and have the user feel special, because they are, if you're using the right systems out there. Jen: Yeah. Travis: And as a result, you know…so getting back to the 80/20 rule, you know, if we kind of segment our partner, customers in your A tier, and B tier, and C tier, you know, we're all about moving those C tier customers to B, and the B's up to the A tier. And then...now, the only problem is how do we create a new tier for those A's because we've run out of letters. Jen: Right. Right. So I've one more, like channel question for you. And I'm gonna ask you to kind of look through your crystal ball here. Wondering about the future of partner programs, you know, you think about like the last 10 years or 20 years, and then where we are today, they've definitely evolved. If you were to look ahead, where do you see the future of partner programs going? And what are you most excited about for the next decade or two of this world of strategic alliances? Travis: Gosh, that's a fun question. Good question. You know, partners...it used to be…I mean, I guess if we were going to look back before we look into the future, it used to be, you know, the strategy was build it and they will come. And that included all these resources. And they would build these things and kinda put these libraries in place. And back in the day when there was only a handful of vendors doing that, they actually had a little bit of success. They would actually get their partners to come and use these resources. But today, there is just so much noise. Everybody has these resources that they expect their channel partners to come to and access and use. And it's not happening, and it's not gonna happen in the future. It's not build it and they will come. Jen: Right. Travis: It's not the field of dreams. And so, you know, what we're seeing now is...and where I see the future is, it's not getting all these assets and resources. It's how can you integrate with your partner? How can you integrate? And you've always tried to integrate your product into theirs. You know, you've got to keep doing that. You've got to integrate your marketing into theirs. You've got to keep doing that. And you've got to keep doing it better. But the real advance is gonna be, how can you integrate with the buying experience? And can you help your partners be more effective out there selling, and help them through the journey? And, you know, we don't have all the answers there but it's starting to crystallize. Again, companies like Allbound are doing things in ways that people had never seen before or considered just a couple few years ago. And those are areas of advancement that are starting to show us the future of channel marketing programs. And on the HMI side, five years ago we weren't having intimacy at scale, and customizing each participant's experience in the channel incentive program. Today we are. There's a long way to go, but that's where it's heading. Those are gonna be the vendors that win. The ones that can integrate into the buying experience. Jen: I agree, because it's all about the customer. That's exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing that all transpire along with you. So thanks for this. Thanks for sharing a lot of your time today with me about incentives and channel programs. This has been awesome, and I do hope that folks who haven't had a chance to participate in Move the Channel will get over to LinkedIn and join that group and start contributing to that group's success. Thank you for starting that. I think it's...I'm glad, I'm very glad you did. Travis: Also, I think it's where we first crossed paths, virtually. Jen: Yep. That's right. So, but Travis before I do let you go, like, really, I have some more personal questions that I always ask our guests. Just so we can get to know you a little bit better. So I'm gonna put you through that rigor now. So, my first question for you is, what is your favorite city? Travis: Gosh, great question. Cleveland, Ohio. Jen: Really. Tell me why you love Cleveland? Travis: You don't get that answer very often, do you? Jen: No, I don't. I don't. I've been there once, and I liked it when I was there. But why do you like Cleveland? Travis: You know, I'm a little bit from Ohio, and a little bit from California. I always joke my parents when I was really young, so there was a lot of back and forth. I was born in California, more raised in Ohio. But growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, which is about an hour south of Cleveland. I became the biggest die hard Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavs, and everything Cleveland. And it was always such a big trip to go to the big city. And so, I have really fond memories of it. And to this day, it's still one of my favorite cities to go visit. Jen: That's great. That's wonderful. Okay, next question for you. Do you consider yourself an animal lover? Do you have any pets? Travis: I do. I'm not a cat person, although my wife is. Jen: Okay. Travis: But fortunately, she's also a dog person. And we saved a mutt from the pound, about seven years ago, and it's part Boxer, part Lab, part Golden Retriever, and a few other things that we're not quite sure. But it is still a puppy today. Seven years later, it has not calmed down a bit. And her name is Honu, which is turtle in Hawaiian. Jen: Yeah. Travis: So, we call her a dog turtle. Jen: What inspired that? I've never met a dog named turtle. Travis: We went on our honeymoon in Hawaii, and went swimming with some honus, some sea turtles. And we found ourselves kind of calling them, and trying to get their attention like you would a dog. Jen: Okay. Travis: And so, we said, "When we get a dog we're gonna call him or her Honu." Jen: That's great. Oh I love it. Okay, next question, Mac or PC? Travis: Oh gosh, I"m sitting here looking at both right now. Jen Spencer: Oh, you're one of those. Travis: I have both, and I love both of them. I have recently been turned onto Mac, and that's where I run a number of my businesses. But, you know what, I have the Microsoft Surface Pro. Jen: Okay. Travis: And, pretty sweet, I have to say. They've come a long way. Jen: Yeah, I've heard great things about that. Okay, last question for you. Let's say I was able to offer you an all expenses paid trip, where would it be to? Travis: It would be to Sydney, Australia. Jen: All right. Have you been there before? Travis: I have. I spent a summer abroad over there. And I've been trying to get back ever since. Jen: Well, I hope you have a chance to return. Travis: Well, should I expect that package in an e-mail after this, or? Jen: No, not any time soon. Travis: No, I was just curious. Jen: Never. It was just hypothetical. Let's say, I was able to offer this. Travis: Yeah. I would say there or Patagonia, Chile, which is another place I've been before, but I'm dying to go back. Jen: Well good. Travis: How about you? I'm curious, what's your answer on that one? Jen: I wanna go to Greece. I really wanna go to Greece, because I want...my background is in theater, and there's a lot of history there, and I want to be able to experience that. But then, I also just love to like just chill on a beach and do nothing. And as far as I can tell, I can do both of those things in Greece. And so that's what I would like to do. Travis: Beautiful. Jen: Yeah. Travis: You've almost made me change my mind. Jen: Oh. Travis: Now, I want to go to Greece. That sounds awesome. I've never been, and that's definitely one high on my list too. That's cool. Jen: Well, thanks for again spending some time with me today. It was awesome. So if anyone wants to reach out to you personally, obviously, they can go to LinkedIn and they can join the Move the Channel group. Is there another way for them to get a hold of you if they want to chat, maybe about HMI or anything that we've talked about here on the show? Travis: You bet. You can go to movethechannel.com and reach me there by submitting just an e-mail, which is perfect. And also, at my HMI e-mail, tsmith@hmiaward.com. And I look forward to it. I love this stuff. I'm kind of nerdy when it comes to channel marketing and sales programs, as you can tell. Jen: Perfect. That's what I like to hear. Thanks again. Thanks Travis for joining me, and thank you everyone else. And we'll catch you next week with an all new episode. Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to the Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at Allbound.com. And remember, never sell alone

Diva Tech Talk was honored to be onsite at one of the largest Midwestern offices for Logicalis U.S., during its recent GIRLS IN TECHNOLOGY DAY. Logicalis (www.us.logicalis.com) is an international information technology solutions and managed services provider that designs, builds and supports enterprise solutions for customers throughout Europe, North and South America, and Asia Pacific.  Logicalis entertained 56 high school and early college girls, offering tailored discussions of practical topics related to succeeding in a technology career. Horizon-broadening sessions covered topics as diverse as: uncovering what you are good at, communicating with confidence, the wide variety of career options in the technology field, how to use social media to build your personal brand, how to ace a job interview, and how to write an excellent resume. Logicalis supports an internal group dedicated to fostering the missions of its own women employees.  Two of the veteran leaders of that group (Logicalis Vice Presidents, Renae Johnson and Julie Spiller) were in the cohort interviewed during this podcast.   Ghazal Asif, Director of Global Channels of Cisco Meraki, was also a key participant in the day. Ghazal was enthusiastic about having the chance to be one of the main keynote speakers since “the idea of women having equal opportunity is very near and dear to my heart.” She spoke eloquently about the need to be fearless in the face of any setback, or any opportunity. “If we look at the data and the stats, it is sad to see that over the last couple of decades, we haven’t made much progress” in diversity building, she said. “Yet, as of today, there’s more awareness, more research on why diversity and inclusion is so good for companies. In every industry, across every function, women are under-represented. More women should step forward so that in 10 or 20 years from now, we can look back and say ‘we made a difference and we changed some of those stats’ for the next generation, and generations to come.” Finally, Vince DeLuca, CEO of Logicalis, took time to present to this audience because “these young ladies are our future.”  DeLuca was encouraged by his interactions with the girls and women.  “Knowing that they have interest in technology is really important,” he said.  “I also think that overall diversity in the field is wildly important to our (Logicalis) success. When we have a male-dominated organization, with just male leaders, we don’t enough of a flow of ideas.”   DeLuca really enjoyed his event participation.  “To see the amount of interest, the general attention of these young ladies is really rewarding.  The benefit that I get out of this would be seeing every one of these folks succeed in their own passion.   I may not get to see that individually, but as a group I think they will do that; and that, to me, is the best reward that I could ever get.” DeLuca waxed philosophical about how the overall education of our youth can be helped by everyone in their environment. “We live in such an interesting world right now.  I think, as a society, we need to do a better job educating everyone about what’s happening out there,” he said. DeLuca sees some key tech trends that can help with this.  “Collaboration has to be near the top,” he said. “There’s so many ways to connect vast amounts of resource groups or information.”   DeLuca is proud that community-building is part of the Logicalis culture. “Giving back to the communities we serve is a core value, across all our offices,” he said. “It’s so important to us, not just to reap the benefit of what we are trying to do with our customers, but making an impact into the community.” Make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com onTwitter @divatechtalks, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechalk.