TEAM EFFORT
But becoming an MSSP is far easier said than done due to a high barrier to entry, increased liability and a host of other factors, MSSP executives told CRN . How can solution providers bring much-needed managed security services to their customers without actually having to offer the services themselves? A growing number of solution providers are finding that partnerships—within the channel community they know so well—may be the answer. Alacrinet partners with 10 different MSSPs in total, a strategy that allows the solution provider to match the ideal service provider to each customer situation, Duhaime said. One of those MSSP partners is Cyderes, a 900-person cyber- security services powerhouse formed through the merger of Herjavec Group and Fishtech Group in 2022. Within its six Security Operations Center (SOC) locations around the globe, Cyderes analysts do the critical work of monitoring and responding to security threats around the clock, every day of the year. For Cyderes, partnering with other solution providers on deals is increasingly proving to be a smarter growth strategy than competing with them, according to Anthony Aurigemma, CRO of the Kansas City, Mo.-based company. The model is so promising, in fact, that Cyderes launched a partner program of its own in March.The new program serves as a way to formalize the process and build trust between the company and its expanding set of collaborators within the channel,Aurigemma said. Case in point: Cyderes recently won two new customers within the retail industry and state, local government and education (SLED) market by teaming up with another solution provider. The solution provider partner handled the closing of the deals, which included managed security services from Cyderes as part of the packages. The arrangement has increased Cyderes’ reach, Aurigemma said, while enabling the solution provider partner to meet customer needs and generate margin. But that’s not all. The deals came together faster than usual “because we didn’t compete with each other,” he said. “The client got everything that they wanted, and the process was much cleaner and speedier.” The new Cyderes partner program underscores a movement toward greater collaboration between solution providers and MSSPs, sparked by the rising demand for managed security. And it’s not justVARs that could benefit from exploring these types of in-channel partnerships to meet customer needs for managed security services, channel executives said. Even for an MSP that is adept at delivering managed IT services, expanding into the managed security side can be a major undertaking. “We have seen MSPs, both large and small, say, ‘We’re going to take some of that on ourselves.’ And it’s a big lift,” said Ben Masino, CRO of Avertium, a Phoenix-based MSSP. And so, while it might seem like a natural progression for
MSPs to evolve into MSSPs over time, that’s not realistic in many cases, according to channel executives. “Doing security operations 24x7 is a significant investment of time, money and resources.You need a lot of expertise to build it and then to scale it, maybe even more so to scale it.And it’s not the same as running a Network Operations Center. It’s a very different business,” Masino said. The bottom line is that “for MSPs out there that are trying and struggling [on managed security], or don’t want to try, or have tried and failed, I think the partner model really works well,” he said. “As long as everybody’s very clear and you build trust in how you engage, I think it can be incredibly successful.” Focus On Enablement For Avertium, which formed in 2019 through the merger of three MSSPs, collaboration within the channel would seem to be in its DNA.All three of the pre-existing companies already had partnerships with other solution providers prior to the merger, Masino said. Masino joined Avertium the following year and said he brought an emphasis on in-channel partnerships as a “core part” of his growth strategy for the company. Since then, “we’ve built on that and made it better, made it more formal,” he said. That included the 2021 hire of cybersecurity sales veteran Randy Rosenbaum to head up Avertium’s channel partner program.The program puts a major emphasis on partner enable- ment, which can be one of the biggest challenges when two solution providers decide to work together, Masino said. “How do you teach sales teams, partner teams what each partner does and how it fits together?” he said. “That doesn’t happen by accident. It really needs to be a concerted effort between the two partners to make sure that everybody’s up to date on how we work together, why we work together, what value the customer has. It sounds basic, but it is actually the thing that differentiates a good partnership from a bad one.” One solution provider that has turned toAvertium to deliver managed security services to its end customers is Towerwall, a longtime provider of solutions and professional services for security. The Framingham, Mass.-based company’s offerings span proactive services such as penetration testing, which entails using hacking techniques to assess security weaknesses, to reactive services such as incident response and remediation. But Michelle Drolet, founder and CEO of Towerwall, said the company has steered clear of offering its own managed services in order to avoid a conflict of interest with the other services the company provides, she said. “What’s happening is you have these managed service pro- viders [that are] adding information security arms. And so it’s not church and state anymore. Now it’s, ‘I’m monitoring your endpoints, I’m managing your firewalls. And hey, I could do penetration testing—on myself,’” Drolet said. “It’s getting really
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