'We have skin in the game': Arcserve offers money-back guarantee for partners

Vendor’s EMEA partner boss tells CPI its data protection guarantee will help partners grow their margins amid spate of ransomware attacks

Arcserve has launched a money-back guarantee on its data protection solution, which the vendor's EMEA partner boss says is designed to give partners "peace of mind for when not if" their customers get attacked.

Mick Bradley told our sister publication CPI that he hopes the move will help cut through what he describes as mixed messaging on security in the market, amid a spate of high-profile ransomware hacks affecting partners.

"If your customer is running an asset data protection solution, in accordance with our best practices, and they get hit by ransomware, and they can't recover their data, we will pay them back the full amount of money they paid their partner," he said.

"So even the margin that the partner makes, we will pay them back."

Last month, Canalys reported that its analysis showed that more data was compromised by ransomware in the last 12 months than in the past 15 years combined.

And for those operating in the data protection space, ransomware helped cybersecurity investment grow to more than €45.2bn in 2020, far outstripping other segments of the IT industry.

Bradley said that the scourge of ransomware is both a blessing and a curse for partners, and that the vendor's eye-catching guarantee is a bid to monopolise on the inevitable focus on the security challenge.

"All of this is insurance. Because you know you're going to get attacked at some stage.

"A lot of our customers are being attacked on a regular basis.

He added: "We're not issuing this guarantee lightly, or because we're insane.

"It's because we know that if you get this right, you're covered. And I believe that's a level of commitment and skin in the game, which, if nothing else, will provoke a conversation."

Avoiding ‘a race to the bottom'

In fact, Bradley hopes the guarantee will be a conversation starter in engagements with end-users as a "differentiator" to the US data protection vendor's rivals.

But rather than just competitive landscape-posturing, he said the key to the company's channel strategy is avoiding pushing partners down "a race to the bottom".

"One of the value-adds to the channel is that we are constantly trying to bring a new and differentiated compensation to our channel partners, because they're struggling.

"If you've got 50 channel partners all selling the same product with the same messaging, it soon becomes a race to the bottom on price, and then nobody wins."

The merger with StorageCraft - ‘Growing margins'

Also new to Arcserve is its ongoing merger with fellow US data management giant StorageCraft, first announced in February.

Bradley said that while the integration of the partner programs will take time, it's the addition of StorageCraft's portfolio that emboldened Arcserve to offer its money-back guarantee.

"A large part of ransomware is about having immutable copies of your data that you can't change. And one of the great things about this merger is that now have a much more rounded portfolio where we can offer that on-premise.

"With some of the storage products in the portfolio, we can offer it into the cloud, whether it's a private cloud or public cloud; so direct or hybrid. And we can offer that under the same management umbrella with the same level of services and support.

"So that's huge, because at the moment, a lot of partners are having to deal with multiple vendors, and knitting these things together a little bit from here and a little bit from there. It looks great on paper until try pricing it."

Even in the short-term, Bradley says that partners can expect to grow their margins with this addition of both portfolio sets.

"There's very, very little, if any, overlap between the StorageCraft business, their channel, their customers and ours.

"If I look at the UK, for example, there's only really one partner that's been working with us both simultaneously. So all of the other partners now have an opportunity to up-sell and bring the supportive products to their customers.

"It's a better conversation, because they're bringing a wider solution set. And with a wider solution set, there's a higher value and there'll obviously be higher margins."

Arcserve/StorageCraft's Data Protection guarantee is secured by its alliance partner Sophos.