Check Point fine-tunes channel approach

Lowe: our partners are picking up more consulting and attached services revenue

Three years ago, Check Point was in turmoil as investors slammed the vendor’s lack of ambition and resellers branded its partner programme a mess.

Those concerns have slowly receded as the security vendor finally dipped into its war-chest to make some bold acquisitions and overhauled its whole approach to partnering.

Now the vendor -­ which posted a healthy 12 per cent annual growth in its most recent quarter ­- is seeking to build on the partner programme it launched two years ago with a series of fine-tunings.

Nick Lowe, managing director northern Europe, said although the heavy lifting had been completed, UK partners can expect some subtle changes in the coming months.

“The partner programme gave us a broad-brush landscape of how to deal with partners ­- if a partner has skills and can add value they will retain greater margin regardless of scale.

“We are now rolling out some programmes and operational resources that underpin that programme.”

In April, Check Point formed a six-strong UK team focused on prospecting for new opportunities in the 1,500-plus enterprise space on behalf of partners. Margins on those deals are then protected to prevent other resellers winning on price at the eleventh hour. About ten UK Platinum, Gold and Silver resellers have already profited from the scheme, which Lowe said had led to several six-figure projects being closed.

Lowe said Check Point will add to that team next year and extend its remit to cover non-managed partners.

“These were projects we never had visibility on a year ago,” said Lowe.

The initiative has also helped Check Point forge ties with a new breed of reseller, Lowe added.

“We are working with Silver partners horizontally and they are not our typical partners,” he said. “A number do datacentre consolidation and have skills in VMware and servers rather than security -but they are hearing that security is a common objection to why people do not deploy.”

Etienne Greeff, director of Check Point partner MIS, commended Check Point for taking a more collaborative approach to demand generation and deal registration.

“Traditionally, vendors’ direct touch teams are ambulance chasers. There is little effort to generate opportunity ­ rather the reseller calls them in at the end of the sales cycle to keep other resellers out of the deal. What we are seeing from Check Point is a more collaborative approach, rather than a partner-lead approach. We hope more vendors take this approach.”

Check Point recently unveiled Dimension Data as its first global Gold partner and Lowe indicated that several UK partners could also make the step up. “That will grow,” he said. “We are looking at whether they can provide the same value-add services look and feel in all our geographies.”

Check Point recently closed its acquisition of Nokia’s security business and, following the integration of the two product sets, Lowe claimed many customers are set to refresh.

“When we announced the acquisition of Nokia, end users were asking what it meant for their future product decisions,” he explained. “We have published the pricing and direction and this has created an enormous demand for refresh of product.”

Greeff agreed: “Now there is certainty, that pent-up demand is coming into the market and we are having more conversations with customers on refresh.”

Jonathan Lassman, managing director of London-based Check Point partner NTS, said: “The channel needs to revisit all of their Check Point customers and impart their knowledge of its new firewall infrastructure.”

And Lowe maintained it is a good time to be a Check Point partner with strong value add skills.

“Our partners are picking up more consulting and attached services revenue, and end users are increasingly asking them to provide value-add services,” he said.

Mark Evans, marketing director at Check Point Silver partner Imerja, said: “Check Point is looking to grow its channel programme in a controlled way. Other vendors have fallen foul of allowing every man and his dog to be a partner, but Check Point has a strong channel model.”