SonicWall to Launch Updated Partner, MSSP Programs

Cybersecurity company SonicWall plans to launch updated partner and MSSP programs in response to changes in partner specification.

The SecureFirst Partner Program includes more than 430 partners completing the prerequisite training and receiving discounts across SonicWall‘s three product lines. SecureFirst includes the Partner Enabled Services Program, the MSSP Partner Program and SonicWall Technology Alliance Partners.

The SecureFirst update is targeted to launch in the first quarter of 2020, and the MSSP program update is targeted to launch at the end of this coming November.

Jerry Avila, SonicWall’s executive director of sales and partner enablement, tells us partners in the past were very horizontal in their skills and selling across verticals, while today’s partners are more focused on specific verticals such as retail, public sector and higher education.

SonicWall’s Jerry Avila

“To help with this, we’ve created a set of training on specified product lines,” he said. “For the partners that participate and complete the program, we provide them with a discount. Ultimately, we wanted to align with industry standards and incorporate all of the feedback we received from our partners to ensure we have a world-class program. Knowing that partners today need a deeper expertise in vendor products, we’ve made the goal of this program to help our partners better understand our portfolio. By creating a mix of prerequisites that provide an overview of product differentiators, product features and helpful tips on how to sell specific products, we’ve helped our partners understand the products, earn more money and discounts by completing the training.”

With SecureFirst, SonicWall will be streamlining the requirements to ensure partners can meet compliance and to enable the partners to better represent the company’s platform and products, Avila said. MSSP will be updated primarily to ensure that it is aligned to what is out there in the market, he said.

“The goal is to ensure we capture our fair share of the market revenue,” he said. “We take end user feedback very seriously as it impacts how we reframe the programs. For example, to help our partners successfully make a transition away from the traditional resell model, we’ve started to provide new programs that are more product-centric so our partners can become experts in all of our solutions.”

SonicWall recently launched a program consisting of “easily digestible sprints,” which are 10- to 15-minute training sessions that talk about the product, what the sales teams need to know about the industry and product, and how to sell the product, Avila said.

“With all the other complexities in the market impacting our partners sales, this helps to enable them to individualize our solutions to each of its customers based on its complex security needs,” he said.

SonicWall’s breach detection and prevention solutions secure more than 1 million networks, and their emails, applications and data, in more than 215 countries and territories.