Exclusive Networks recently announced that following its acquisition of NEXTGEN earlier this year, the integrated ANZ businesses would operate under the updated NEXTGEN brand.
In late June 2024, Exclusive Networks CEO Jesper Trolle and NEXTGEN founder and CEO John Walters spoke to CRN Australia’s William Maher about the rise of data-driven selling through NEXTGEN’s CRN award-winning oSpace platform, and what the Asia-Pacific channel should expect from the merged entity. This is a transcript — edited for brevity and clarity — of that conversation.
CRN Australia: What was the genesis for Exclusive Networks’ acquisition of NEXTGEN?
JESPER TROLLE, Exclusive Networks: John [Walters, NEXTGEN founder and CEO] and I have known each other for many years through the Oracle world. When I joined Exclusive close to four years ago, one of the first [people] I called was John and said, ‘You know, we should do something’ [together]. Interestingly, there's very little overlap between our businesses; we have only two [vendors] that we worked with on both sides, which is extraordinary.
There were quite a few [vendors] we didn't work with in ANZ, and we struggled getting them, in part, because these guys [NEXTGEN] were working with them - Jesper Trolle, Exclusive Networks
But also because we were just too small. This acquisition gives us a lot more scale and reach in ANZ.
Exclusive also has a significant business in APAC outside of ANZ and so, taking what John had begun to build in [Asia] will become part of Exclusive and give more critical mass.
Secondly, both organisations have always had quite a strong focus on cyber[security] — Exclusive, probably a little bit more than NEXTGEN, which also has cloud and other things — but cyber is a big theme. It's a growth, complex market and fragmentation is good for businesses like ours.
The third part is a lot of [NEXTGEN’s] services John and the team here several years ago started to build around Optima with cloud, lead-gen pipeline development with oSpace, the cyber lab and some of these other brands – I have a keen interest to take and deploy [them] on the Exclusive platform. We do a lot of cloud, but not a lot of business with AWS or other hyperscalers, so that's interesting for us.
CRN Australia: What opportunities do you see in a fragmented cybersecurity market?
JESPER TROLLE: [Exclusive Networks] spent quite a lot of time looking at new technologies, new vendors, new innovative solutions coming within cyber. What's the opportunity for the channel with that? Is it a solution that’s here to replace another technology or is it an add-on? Depending on where [vendors] are in that product lifecycle, what's the right end-customer and right routes to market? Then what are the right routes to market and enabling those routes to market. Then you loop in things like oSpace with lead-gen pipeline development and help these partners [go] to market.
Like NEXTGEN has oSpace, we have Ignition Technologies, focused on earlier-stage cybersecurity vendors that need a lot more handholding and direct-to-end-customer contact. In most cases, the partner does not have any skill sets [for emerging vendors] so we sub-contract our skills for the partner to use it in a customer demonstration. Over time, we ask the partner to get trained [up] and you get that multiplier effect of the channel.
There's 3500 [cybersecurity vendors] with new ones every year but we are starting to see more platforms. You have three, four vendors, I would say, that are truly becoming a platform vendor. It doesn’t mean there will not continue to be best of breed, there absolutely will. But I think you're going to see more M&A in this space, where some of these larger platforms going to acquire good technology before they become really significant players as a standalone.
CRN Australia: What plans do you have for NEXTGEN’s services businesses?
JESPER TROLLE: Exclusive is quite strong on the post-sale — training, support implementation, stuff you need after you bought the solution— where NEXTGEN is not so strong I think it’s fair to say. But [NEXTGEN] is a lot stronger with oSpace and lead-gen and pipeline in the pre-sales phase. When you put these two things together you get an even stronger offering for that value chain, which is something we are keen do. John will work with me on how [to] scale that globally. We are in 47 markets around the world and every single one of these markets is a potential customer for these services.
CRN AUSTRALIA: What distinguishes the merged entity from its distributor rivals?
JESPER TROLLE: I always say the one thing about our businesses is it’s about growth. The day we can’t help our vendors grow we frankly have no right to be here. So I always like to say our No.1 customer is the vendor, because they’re the ones we actually work for to drive and deliver growth through indirect channels.
CRN AUSTRALIA: What changes will partners likely see now that the deal to acquire NEXTGEN is done?
JESPER TROLLE: NEXTGEN will be the go-forward business here in ANZ. Take a market like New Zealand, it means we bring our two teams together. Suddenly, we have double the feet on the street, which is significant for a market like New Zealand, and that's going to benefit all our partners [and] vendors.
In ASEAN, it’s the other way around because Exclusive’s business is much more mature; we've been there since we acquired Transition [Systems, a pan-Asian cybersecurity value-added distributor] back in 2015. And so we're going to take [NEXTGEN’s business] and all of the businesses there and put it together with Exclusive’s business [under] our Exclusive banner because that’s the larger and more well-established business in ASEAN.
CRN AUSTRALIA: How will NEXTGEN’s oSpace platform factor into Exclusive Network’s plans?
JOHN WALTERS: We're just about to ingest the ANZ Exclusive Networks’ data [into oSpace]; think of how that will enrich and make the data even more valuable around buyer predictor. As we speak, [we’re] looking at the data of Exclusive in America for a particular project for oSpace and, again, you start throwing this data in underpinned by AI — and see what it can do. The key is making sure you’ve got the right data — clean data — but then how are you going to use it?
And distributors are best in the world as far as data sources go but I don't know if many of them are using it in a powerful manner - John Walters, NEXTGEN
CRN AUSTRALIA: How can your unique intellectual property (IP) support data-driven selling in the channel?
JESPER TROLLE: The IP of a distributor is the data; the one thing we produce — that we own — is the data we generate. We know who bought what? Why did they buy it through [the partner]? What was the price point? Where is it installed or operated from? Who's potentially under support? When something is up for renewal … and what other piece of technologies do they have?
And then you add — which NEXTGEN has done a phenomenal job — external data [to] enrich your own data. And then you get a good view about what technology fits together, what routes to market are best for these types of end-customers in this vertical, [and] price points.
And then Exclusive brings data around support calls and training — is there a correlation between companies that have not been trained and support calls, for example? You start to add all that data, then it’s just a question of what you do with it. Exclusive has a lot of projects internally around data-driven selling and … the use cases for the data we have. So that’s a huge focus and has been for NEXTGEN as well.
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