Avecto signs up Wick Hill as sole UK VAD

Security vendor says it has just touched the tip of the iceberg of channel growth

UK VAD Wick Hill has been signed up as Avecto’s sole UK distributor, taking the place of the vendor's previous partner, Arrow.

Avecto – an end-point security provider – says it has partnered with Wick Hill to support its growth in the UK, which helped it generate $28m (£18m) in sales globally throughout the last financial year. Over the same period, it recorded a 300 per cent annual increase in global profits.

The vendor will soon be relocating to another office in Manchester, allowing it to increase its UK team to 300 staff from the current 120, saying that its recent growth is “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Arrow was appointed as Avecto's distributor in January this year, but the latter confirmed this agreement has ended in order to make way for Wick Hill.

Richard Brooks, vice president of sales for EMEA at Avecto, said Wick Hill is a better fit.

“We did have some previous relationships with another value-added distributor, but for a variety of reasons Wick Hill fits best what we do as a business," he said.

“I certainly see Wick Hill as a true value-added distributor. [It is] very security focused and [has] specialist knowledge in the security space with other security solutions that complement what we do rather than compete.”

Wick Hill will also help develop the vendor’s existing resellers, but the two companies are setting targets to bring on more partners in the UK.

Avecto currently has 600 global customers and sees the banking and finance markets as its strongest verticals.

Brooks added: “We have set ourselves some realistic but aggressive targets for the first year. We also have very strong ambitions to get significant growth from the channel.”

Ian Kilapatrick, chairman of Wick Hill – which partners with a number of security vendors such as Barracuda, Kaspersky and SafeNet – added that Avecto offers products that fit a niche, which is what its reseller partners look for.

He said: “Avecto fits absolutely into that jigsaw, where there is a gap in our portfolio. We don’t look to have offerings that are directly competitive.”

Speaking about the security industry, Kilapatrick said the market has changed significantly in that a business’ first line of defence is now its employees, meaning security hazards are a company-wide risk, rather than just an IT problem.

"Defendpoint delivers a combination solution that is crucial for business defence today, dealing with application control, privilege management and sandbox protection against advanced attacks," he said.

"While some businesses have some elements of this, very few have all three operational and in combination."