TD Synnex Beyond Security: Big Money for Partners in Services
Cybersecurity spending remains strong.
TS Synnex Beyond Security
For TD Synnex, its SASE segment has grown 1,000%, said the distributor’s Reyna Thompson.
“It started off as small and it’s really continuing to grow,” she said. “And it’s interesting, we’re seeing more and more of these frameworks that are being put in place from manufacturers that are looking at helping demystify some of the complexity of implementing security. So we’re definitely see that growth. And we definitely see growth in cloud security as well. Around percentages, it’s 2,000% to 3,000% growth in cyber cloud security.”
Jessica McDowell, TD Synnex’s senior vice president of business development and security strategy, said the theme of Beyond Security is “chart your course.”
“My challenge to you over the next couple of days is to think about exactly that,” she told TD Synnex resellers. “What course is your business on? Where are you trying to go? What is your next destination? And I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say that for many of you, charting your course is going to mean expanding your revenue. It’s going to mean expanding opportunities with the customers that you already have. It’s going to be finding new customers and finding new routes to market. It’s going to mean accelerating your business, keeping your customers safe and connected, and providing stable employment and growth opportunities for your employees and your co-workers. Maybe your team is already stretched thin. Maybe you just don’t have the bandwidth right now to incorporate the latest and greatest trends in networking and security. And on top of that, the cybersecurity skills gap is very real, and that’s something that we all have to deal with every day. And with the breakneck speed at which our industry changes, simply keeping up with the current landscape is really almost a full-time job in and of itself. And then even when you figure out all of these new buzzwords mean, then there’s what feels like a thousand vendors that are coming at you every single day.”
TD Synnex helps resellers in four ways, McDowell said. It helps them learn, solves complexity, delivers versatile technology solutions and helps them evolve.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, companies are understanding that they simply cannot afford to not spend money on cybersecurity and on a reliable infrastructure, McDowell said.
“Today, the enterprise networking and cybersecurity market has grown to $170 billion and is expected to increase another $100 billion in just the next three years, according to Gartner,” she said. “So according to Gartner, we are going to see this huge jump over the next couple of years. And by comparison, that number was just $70 billion in 2010. So this really demonstrates the tremendous investment that is required to protect data and information in today’s world. The opportunity is massive. Now, of course, the reason that cybersecurity spending isn’t going away and it’s actually continuing to increase is because cyber crime isn’t going away. It’s increasing daily. Hackers are getting smarter and now it’s creeping into new industries. Phishing remains one of the top threats followed by exploitation of public-facing applications. And what’s interesting is that during phishing attacks, stealing credit card information has rapidly declined. But at the same time, attacks that involve extorting money from victims have gone up. And if there’s one group that you can count on to be always on the cutting edge of technology, it’s cybercriminals. Cybercriminals have been using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for years, and now they’re using generative AI to churn out new attacks more efficiently and to a larger group of targets.”
Also during Beyond Security 2023, Sounil Yu, CISO and head of research at JupiterOne gave a keynote detailing the essential guide to navigating the cybersecurity landscape. He developed the Cyber Defense Matrix, a framework that helps practitioners navigate the world of cybersecurity. It organizes all of the security “buzzwords” and identifies what problems are being solved.
The categories include identify, protect, detect, respond and recover. Among assets to protect are devices, apps, networks, data and users.
The Cyber Defense Matrix makes the implicit more explicit, Yu said.
“When you put out a fire, one of the questions you should ask is what kind of fire,” he said. “Understanding what the fire is is useful for bringing the right tools. The matrix says there are five different fires, five different assets, and do you have coverage of all five.”
The Cyber Defense Matrix specifies vendors’ primary functions through their products, Yu said. This helps resellers navigate the cybersecurity landscape to ensure they’re working with the right vendors to optimize their cybersecurity.
Calhoun McKinney, TD Synnex’s senior director of product business management, outlined the top three trends in cybersecurity and networking.
The No. 1 trend is information technology (IT) operational technology (OT) and IoT converging.
“We’re really seeing OT being pulled into a more digitized process,” she said. “This is what you’re seeing in the manufacturing space, and energy and transportation. And the reason why that is so important is because these environments are really vulnerable right now. A lot of them have outdated technology and cybercriminals have caught on to the fact that if these environments go offline, that’s a big problem. They’re not producing. They’re going to fall behind on the supply chain or if the energy company doesn’t have control of its environment, that’s obviously going to be a big problem. Water treatment facilities, that’s an issue. So they’re one of the fastest to pay a ransom in some cases because they’ve got to get their environment back online. So cybercriminals are aware of that.”
Application security and data security will be important in securing OT, McKinney said. And from a networking standpoint, it’s important to ensure those connected environments have a secured connection that’s also been updated.
“The second security trend I would talk about is AI, and that one is kind of a tightrope to walk on because you’ve got generative AI that’s actually helping fight cybercriminals and malicious activity,” she said. “But then you also have AI being used by cybercriminals to kind of maximize their threatscape. So that’s going to be really tricky in the coming years. And there’s a lot of vendors right now who are investing heavily in R&D to address those concerns. And we’re even seeing some of these chatbot platforms come out and kind of throw their hat into the ring to say hey, we want to also try and pull back some of the malicious activity that’s happening through our platform. So there’s really an all-hands-on-deck approach in the AI space to see improvement there.”
The third trend is the need to secure third-party applications, McKinney said.
“Integration with applications really accelerated through the pandemic in the last three years,” she said. “And so I think just continuing to make sure that customers are approaching application security thoroughly is going to be important.”
During a vendor panel on combatting evolving cyber threats, Tony Anderson, Palo Alto Networks‘ senior director of distribution and public sector, said demand for consolidation of security tools presents opportunities for partners.
Other panelists included Manoj Sharma, Symantec’s global head of security strategy, David Branscome, Microsoft‘s global partner solutions security architect, and JD Jack, general manager of Google public sector cybersecurity. Jim MacBride, TD Synnex’s senior director of business development, moderated the panel.
Customers are looking to consolidate tools, Anderson said. They’re trying to improve their security posture by reducing complexity.
While addressing customers’ need to consolidate, partners also have an opportunity to focus on creating a more streamlined business for themselves, he said.
Another issue addressed by the panel included cyber risks associated with AI. Branscome said ML and AI have to be trained properly in order to provide good information.
“Good information to generate good information,” he said.
Jack said AI is beneficial in automation to speed identification of threats and reduce dwell time.
“But an attacker with AI is going to be very dangerous,” he said. “They can query and find vulnerabilities in a network, and embed themselves there. This is going to be a new frontier and we’re all going to be part of it.”
Michael Urban, TD Synnex’s Americas president, told attendees if you look at the overall tech market, PC is the only sector that’s down. Everything on the non-PC side is up.
“The market is still intact and growing,” he said. “Cybersecurity is where it should be.”
Many areas of TD Synnex’s business are growing, Urban said.
“There’s so much potential in security,” he said. “You’re the pilot helping your end customers. And then we’d like to be a co-pilot. Call us up, we are there.”
Michael Urban, TD Synnex’s Americas president, told attendees if you look at the overall tech market, PC is the only sector that’s down. Everything on the non-PC side is up.
“The market is still intact and growing,” he said. “Cybersecurity is where it should be.”
Many areas of TD Synnex’s business are growing, Urban said.
“There’s so much potential in security,” he said. “You’re the pilot helping your end customers. And then we’d like to be a co-pilot. Call us up, we are there.”
On Day 1 of Beyond Security 2023, TD Synnex said resellers that have engaged with the distributor on service opportunities have experienced massive growth in cybersecurity revenue.
The 10th annual Beyond Security is taking place this week in Scottsdale, Arizona. In attendance are nearly 260 partners representing about 160 companies.
Synnex’s Reyna Thompson
Reyna Thompson, TD Synnex’s senior vice president of North American product management for security and networking, said the distributor’s focus on services has grown exponentially.
“Our partners who purchased services in the last two fiscal years saw an average of 137% year-on-year growth in security revenue and 25% average growth in vendors purchased,” she said. “These numbers are outstanding and paint a picture of the power that is in this room today and the opportunity that we can execute on. So although the current landscape seems to have a transform or else kind of mentality, we’re prepared. We’ve been helping lead the way in transformation by partnering with our vendors and customers for years and we will continue to do just that.”
Several things are fueling services growth, Thompson said.
“I think a lot of the services which are more professional services that I see are partners that are not traditionally security partners, they’re traditional IT resellers that are having to really expand and integrate security in their portfolio,” she said. “So they are responding very well to our service offerings as it relates to remediation services. We’re taking a partner through these secure access service edge (SASE) stacks and really helping them integrate those solutions. And that’s really necessary because these are not born-in-security type resellers.
“These are resellers that are taking a look and saying security now is important, I have to care about security. And then looking at the thousands of different technology partners that are out there and saying, how do I navigate, what do I care about? What do I implement? How do I engage? So a lot of our growth stemmed from covering the partner in terms of enabling them for technology and enabling them with these services.”
TD Synnex’s financial services team now aligns to its business segment. That means partners have one point of contact for TD Synnex Capital for all security networking vendors.
Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Day 1 of Beyond Security 2023.
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