Bell Micro is aiming to shatter the barrier of entry into the security market for generalist VARs after drawing up battle cards highlighting easy cross-sell opportunities.

The distribution giant estimates that just one in 10 of its 5,000 reseller customers builds security into a sale.

Steve Browell, director of Bell’s security division, said he hoped that Bell’s Secure the Deal programme would help to boost that to at least three in 10 within 12 months.

Bell’s pointers will vary depending on the profile of each reseller. VARs involved in server deployments, for example, may be coached to ask customers at the point of sale if information stored on the servers will be moved to another location.

They would then be prompted to push data leakage or content filtering technology, with the option of backing off the services to Bell.

“This is a natural part of the project, but one that either the customer is not doing with you or, worse, they have not thought about at all,” said Browell. “Until people routinely embed security into projects at the start, things such as the HM Revenue and Customs and TK Maxx [breaches] will keep happening.”

He claimed the programme had gone down well with resellers that are not currently selling security.

“At this early stage, we have had active conversations with 30 resellers because we have made it so simple. It is a good margin business they can add to their low-margin business.”

However, the programme was met with scepticism by some specialist security integrators.

Rob Gupta, managing director of Secon, which is setting up an industry body to raise the barrier of entry into the security channel, questioned how many generalists could make a meaningful move into the market.

“If one in 10 of Bell’s resellers is going back to the distributor, there will be a queue of end users waiting for a service. Specialist resellers are closer to the user and understand their security environment,” he said.