‘7 Minutes’ with Opaq Chief Strategy Officer Ken Ammon

… the intended destination without even touching the internet. Unique intellectual property, such as software-defined network segmentation capabilities, provide 100-percent visibility and control across the internal network and prevent lateral east-west movement throughout the internal network if a breach were to occur. We also built the Opaq 360 portal to serve as a simple, intuitive interface for partners to centrally monitor, manage and enforce policies for their clients. Opaq’s subscription-based, as-a-service model makes it simple for our partners’ customers to consume, while allowing service providers to achieve revenue margins of up to 40 percent or more.

CP: Describe your channel program — metal levels, heavy on certifications, open or selective, unique features? Do you work with masters and/or distributors?

KA: Opaq is 100 percent channel — we work directly with our partners, enabling VARs, MSPs and MSSPs to deliver comprehensive network security as a service to midsize enterprises — from the Opaq Cloud. The Opaq Partner Program offers gold and silver partner levels. The Opaq partner portal is a single interface that makes it simple for partners to do business with Opaq. The portal enables partners to: set up business agreements; create joint business and marketing plans with Opaq; track activity and notifications from a dashboard; receive training and certification; access a resource library; perform deal registration; manage leads and request market development funds (MDF).

Gold partners agree to a $3 million annual commitment and are entitled to three Opaq-certified engineers, and the above resources and tools accessible through the Opaq partner portal. Silver partners agree to a $1 million annual commitment and are entitled to one Opaq-certified engineer, and to the above resources and tools accessible through the Opaq partner portal, except for MDF.

CP: Quick-hit answers: Percentage of sales through the channel, number of partners, average margin. Go.

KA: We are selling 100 percent through channel. Opaq is not looking to sign partners “en masse,” but instead are focused on adding 30-40 quality partners by the end of the year. Partners achieve recurring revenue margins of 40 percent or more. Some partners are seeing an increase in revenue margins of more than 25 percent (over legacy MSSP revenue margins) — with time-to-value being measured in minutes and hours, not weeks and months.

CP: Who are your main competitors, and what makes your offering better?

KA: Zscaler and Cato Networks are the most commonly referenced competitors; however, the Opaq cloud delivers more and stronger integrated security capabilities than these companies. For example, our software-defined network segmentation technology, which is just one capability integrated into the Opaq cloud platform, is an endpoint agent that provides VPN, asset inventory, segmentation and
quarantine capabilities. This enables partners to incorporate endpoint and managed detection and response into their service offerings. Also, Opaq’s business model is philosophically different than its competitors. Our strategic partnership business model enables the partners to deliver best-in-class, enterprise-grade security powered by known, trusted brands such as …