Palo Alto tweaks 'channel engine' with EMEA recruitment drive

Vendor is revving up to nab market share from the likes of Cisco and Check Point

Palo Alto Networks is growing its indirect teams across Europe as it tunes up its "channel engine" in a bid to poach business from rivals such as Cisco and Check Point.

The security vendor’s new vice president of channel EMEA, Mike Herman, told CRN he was brought on board to support the existing channel team, which was "overwhelmed" with the rise in demand from resellers.

Along with developing its channel, Herman shared with CRN his goal to snatch market share – of which the vendor currently has nine per cent in the global security market – from competitors Cisco, Check Point, Fortinet and Juniper.

“Those are the guys we want to take market share from,” he said. “We believe we have a valued proposition around our technology and services that will enable us to sell very successfully against those companies.”

Palo Alto – a US-based network security company that works 100 per cent through the channel – reported that revenue was growing 50 per cent year on year, hitting $192.3m (£125.1m) in the first quarter of 2015.

“The company has grown over the past few years, and we have sort of struggled to keep pace in the channel organisation with the number of partners that have wanted to come on board and work with us,” Herman said.

“We have had a relatively small, but well-equipped channel team that got a little bit overwhelmed in the last few months. We are taking stock of how many people we need; we certainly have far too few.”

Herman added that he is the first vice president of channel at Palo Alto, which he claims is a reflection of the company's focus on developing its partner community.

He joined Palo Alto from IBM, and prior to that worked at Cisco. His aim is to increase channel resources in the businesses by about 50 per cent across Europe.

Currently, the vendor has around 3,000 reseller partners worldwide, but the channel VP is wary of having too big a reseller community, where only a small number grows in line with the vendor's needs.

New partners in EMEA would work within the company’s two-tier distribution model, with Westcom and Exclusive Networks.

“From a reseller perspective we are tightening up our focus. You run the risk if you are too successful and have a massive reseller channel, that only a relatively small number of those resellers are investing and really growing their business in the space where you want them to grow," Herman said.