Avast has promoted Marc Botham to vice president of worldwide channel and alliances for Avast Business.

Botham joined Avast six months ago as regional director for the U.K. and Ireland. Then he quickly progressed to managing Avast’s network of channel partners across the globe.

Avast Business’ Marc Botham

Botham has more than 20 years of experience. He worked as senior director for EMEA SMB sales at Symantec. He also was senior director of U.K. channels at Microsoft. And he most recently was managing director of U.K. and Ireland at Quest.

Botham will report directly to Anthony O’Mara, Avast Business‘ vice president of sales. Furthermore, he will manage a global team from Avast’s office in London.

“Marc joined us in March and he’s been a great addition to the team,” O’Mara said. “His knowledge of the industry, and experience working with businesses and partners, will be a great asset as we continue to grow and strengthen the Avast Business portfolio.”

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Botham talks about his new role and what partners can expect in the coming months.

Channel Futures: How is your role changing with Avast?

Marc Botham: My previous role was as country manager for the U.K. and Ireland on the consumer side of the business. As part of Avast‘s ongoing commitment to a channel-first strategy, my new role … was created within the commercial business unit. I am fortunate to have a 20-plus year career history of leading channel organizations and programs with many major software vendors such as Microsoft, BMC and even some of our competition, and am excited to take on this new role.

CF: What is at the top of your to-do list?

MB: My key priority supported by our distribution partners is to focus on a significant partner recruitment drive globally. In order to address our significant growth aspirations in the SMB segment, we need to significantly increase the size of our partner ecosystem to support us in all regions.

I am constantly hearing from partners how they feel disenchanted by our competitors who have become complacent. I assure this is not something we will do at Avast.

We are placing the channel first in all our sales and go-to-market (GTM) sales motions, and working with every partner in a true partnership, to both parties’ commercial benefit. This is best reflected in our channel-first strategy, which this year will include a new channel program providing class-leading channel margins (up to 55%) and supporting partners’ own individual IP development as we build unique joint GTM propositions. This is vital as partners move away from simply reselling solutions to focusing on delivering business outcomes and creating real customer value.

CF: What’s your take on Avast channel strategy? Any changes needed?

MB: If recent events with the pandemic have proved anything, it is the need to constantly adapt so change will always be needed. I think we have been very transparent with our channel-first strategy. We are aiming for a clear and concise program without the usual complex elements found in many traditional programs. In other words, an Avast partner can quickly and easily …

… understand how the program works, and align with it to maximize their commercial benefits.

We are also enabling partners to quickly build a significant, consistent and resilient revenue stream with our cloud-first strategy, delivering solutions in a way the customer wants to purchase. Like all programs, the need to continually evolve will arise. However, any changes will be smaller adjustments rather than radical changes. [That] means partners can be confident in our predictability and therefore do not constantly change their own internal processes and sales motions to keep up with changes.

CF: How have partners’ needs changed during COVID-19? As a result, how is Avast addressing these needs?

MB: Just as Avast places the customer at the heart of everything we do, we are doing the same with our channel partners. A good example of this is how we are changing our channel business models to allow it to be purchased and consumed in the best way that suits the partner and customer, allowing them to flex to market demands. I am also excited and proud about the work we are doing with the channel to help protect some of our more critical verticals like health care during this time of a global crisis with COVID-19 affecting all of us.

Together with our channel partners, we are supporting the ongoing digital transformation by helping our customers develop highly secure business systems integration and enabling remote working at this globally challenging time. It is great to see that Avast and our partners are front and center in making a difference here.

CF: What do you hope to have accomplished a year from now in this new role?

MB: My hope is that partners will be coming to us because they have heard how much we value the channel. And they feel truly valued and supported as we together deliver our mission to protect digital freedoms. I also want our partners to feel at Avast we are doing things differently from the old traditional models, and that every day we deliver against our promise of a channel-and cloud-first approach.