Counting cash in IT security

Channel assistance
This year, vendors and their partners will need to work together to overcome the falling economy. It is clear that security is defying the downturn and whatever cuts are made to IT budgets, security is less likely to be affected. Vendors and partners can avoid the worst by communicating and listening to each other. The key is to have open and transparent conversations with partners, says Dimension Data's O'Loughlin.

"We feel that [vendors] are moving closer to us as indicated by their readiness to back a large integrator such as Dimension Data," says O'Loughlin. "They need to maintain their relevancy to me as an integrator. I also need them to assist in terms of making sales easier, turning quotes around quicker, ensuring the demo stock is available and they just need to be fair and relevant to us and the way we go to market."

However, O'Loughlin says distributors are being very cautious in this market and won't extend too much credit. Data #3's Laurence Baynham agrees and would like to see more help from this direction.

"Volume rebates are always welcome especially when they add value and are relevant to the business."

Verykios from Distribution Central agrees it's his job to come up with creative terms of credit.
"We've had finance from day one which includes our seven options on how to finance a deal. It's become more and more relevant today than ever. Other distributors are doing it which is encouraging."

Recently, Westcon Group launched a financing offering for resellers called Westcon Capital. Dean Douglas, chief operating officer at Westcon Group, says it will give resellers a great deal more flexibility and liquidity. "We're very excited about it," he says.

Meanwhile, distributors want vendors to provide easy to buy, innovative technologies backed up by marketing, says Westcon Group's Hall. "Making it simple will ensure customers come to them for solutions in a tight market," he adds.

Verykios agrees: "We want vendors to go out and create as much end-user demand as they possibly can and put some excitement in their technology. They have to commoditise [technology] as quickly as they can. The channel has to do the rest."

In order to support their partners, it appears security vendors are finding ways to invest. In the case of RSA, country manager Mark Pullen says its entire increase of APAC resources will be spent to support its channel growth. "All of my headcount plan and every new additional head this year is in the channel team.

"We've been out talking to our key partners about what we're doing and how we plan to help them grow their business," he says.

Pullen says there are a few things solution providers can do to weather this economic storm and position themselves for growth in 2009.

Symantec's partner program is offering several programs and incentives to help partners drive new business, identify growth and find opportunities, the vendor claims. These include programs such as Opportunity Registration, the Symantec Referral program, the Aspire Rebate program, SMB Specialisation and SMB One-to-One portal. In addition, Symantec offers partners access to online marketing campaign materials and tools.

Symantec is also investing in training and support. One of the biggest issues Symantec hears from its partners is how to show customers ROI more quickly - which is critical in today's economic environment. "By understanding the depth of products and how they integrate and play together, solution providers can frame the business conversation with customers and help them understand the business results they'll achieve. In that light, we are offering our partners new education and training tools, such as the Symantec University for Partners program, to help them drive greater profitability."

Meanwhile, Sourcefire is hiring a "channel czar" and making investments in training, demo labs and tools specifically for the channel. In addition, the bulk of its marketing investment in APAC goes to supporting the channel and helping partners increase awareness, conduct education events and build their pipelines, claims Male.

Kaspersky is about to launch a new Australia and New Zealand channel program in the next couple of months. The newly opened local office will offer improved support to the local channel, assisting its partners with marketing, strategic advice, technical support and account management, says Gromyko.

"We now have a new regional channel manager for Australia and New Zealand who will assist the channel in growing their specific market segments. We also have a new, 100 percent Australian-based technical support team which will not only help end-users but will also improve the channel's knowledge of the Kaspersky product range by providing training in Australia. Soon we're adding an account manager and a malware expert to the team in Melbourne, which will further strengthen our support to the channel," says Gromyko.

Dominic Whitehand sums up today's security market. "The market is still reasonably buoyant, but it will be interesting to see what effect is noticeable beyond April and May this year, as we enter what is traditionally the strongest quarter for IT-related sales.

"Most of the financial market gurus are predicting that April will see the first real signs of a true recession locally - and therefore there could well be a reaction in the market to that.
All these areas focus on reducing fraud and if you stop a dollar of fraud, that dollar goes straight to the bottom line. It's almost instant ROI," says RSA's Pullen.