Cybersecurity Peer Group

Also at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, cybersecurity professionals expressed interest in forming a new Cybersecurity Peer Group. The purpose of the group will be establishing a network where security partners can talk about what’s on their mind in a vendor-free, closed-door session.

Rory Sanchez, president, and Sam Ruggeri, executive vice president of Cerberus Cyber Sentinel, moderated an introductory session polling attendees on what they’d like to see from a peer group.

They presented three scenarios:

• Casual — where attendees meet at Channel Partners events, with minimal criteria to join and minimal commitments, and collaborating ahead of time on content, with low or no cost.
• Medium — Maybe meet ahead of time and for an entire day with committed attendance. Group members feel a responsibility to be there and best practices are shared. No financials are needed to join and there’s no financial sharing. Various topics would be tackled and subject matter experts could give presentations. And there’s no homework.
• Serious — It’s not in conjunction with any conference, there’s committed attendance, members have to qualify and it’s serious business. Quarterly financials are turned in, analyzed and reviewed with one member’s financials in the hot seat per meeting.

A number of attendees expressed more interest in medium or serious scenarios for the group.

“So we’re trying to create the framework, and the next step we’re going to take is we’re going to look at the data, we’re going to poll the audience and we’re going to see if we have another session, probably piggyback with the next (Channel Partners) conference,” Ruggeri said.

Jason Rincker is sales director at New Charter Technologies. He’s all for bringing the channel together on the topic of cybersecurity.

“Obviously it’s the hottest topic out there,” he said. “And to share best practices in some areas that maybe we can all improve in, it’s phenomenal. I wholeheartedly support this. Being part of New Charter Technologies, we have 18 other MSPs, and so me being part of it, I would like to bring what we’re doing there to share in those best practices. But also most importantly is to learn and listen from the peers so we can all grow together.”

Rincker is interested in including learning opportunities in the group.

“The more education we can get, what challenges we’re all facing, maybe we can help each other,” he said. “I’d really like to make sure the primary focus is cybersecurity and the compliance piece.”

Ryan Draayer is CEO of Hyper Networks. He said he’s a member of other peer groups, but has never been part of the inception.

“I would love to be part of it,” he said. “Some of the best practices that we have, some of the greatest advantages that we’ve picked up have been from peer groups that have been there before us, and tell us how they’re doing and what they’re doing. They share those, they take an interest in our business, they ask you two months later, ‘Hey, what did you do about that troublesome customer? What did you do about that problematic vendor? How did you solve that, and present to the group what you did?’ To me, this is far more valuable. And I think there’s a vehicle for having a space for it by people who are interested in presenting to groups that are serious. The investment by the individuals in the group has to be there for it to be valuable.”

Draayer said “no question” he’s interested in the serious option for the group.

“I love truth, and when you open the (financials) and say. ‘We made this much selling this product last year, our salespeople are hitting these numbers on average monthly,’ it does two things,” he said. “It validates your experience, ‘Hey, we’re doing the right things,’ or it gives you opportunities for improvement and growth. So you can go to them and ask, ‘How are you selling managed detection and response (MDR)? How is this the largest line item in your new product sales? Tell me what you’re doing and please share that.’ As long as they’re here to help me and I’m here to help them. The other thing that comes out of these groups so often is, ‘We have large enterprise customers headquartered in Las Vegas that need to get stuff done in Des Moines.’ You have resources where, ‘Hey, I have a guy who can help you in Des Moines, I have a data center route that will take care of a refresh without having to fly my guys out.'”