We see a fair few vendors changing the goals when it comes to required exams or steps to accreditation
Melissa Rambridge
Role: CEO, Sweethaven
Which vendor are you focusing your technical and sales staff accreditation efforts on in 2022, and why?
In line with Sweethaven's projected growth in cybersecurity for both education and B2B markets, this year we'll be focusing our technical and sales staff training/accreditations on Connectwise - namely their security suite including Fortify Endpoint Security and Network Threat Detection.
What is your ambition for the partnership?
Sweethaven has a number of large, UK-wide joint ventures on the horizon and we believe this partnership will specifically enable us to provision high-quality EDR and SIEM solutions within our security stacks, delivered with a high degree of consultancy knowledge and calibre. There is currently a huge need and gap in the education space in particular for these solutions.
Read a summary of the CRN Vendor Report findings here
Are there any new/emerging vendors where you are ramping up accreditation efforts? If so, why?
We are continually on the lookout for and assessing new, innovative solution providers within the security space to enhance our security stack - especially when factoring in our requirement for delivery to two quite different markets with edu and B2B.
What's your biggest bugbear when it comes to vendor accreditation and training?
It would have to be lack of clarity on training paths. We see a fair few vendors changing the goals when it comes to required exams or steps to accreditation, which can prove tricky when you've just formulated a team member's progression path around them!
If you could give your vendors one piece of advice on how to improve their accreditation/training process, what would it be?
Be crystal clear on what you would like your resellers and MSPs to be most skilled in, and why. Once that is clearly signposted, working in partnership to both take the headache/time constraint out of setting training paths for internal teams and, in turn, promoting those solutions to market - within a logical sequence of events - is always most helpful. Training and accreditation is mutually recognised as hugely important for all involved (not least professional development of team members), when time is pressured then help in achieved progression paths is always very greatly appreciated!
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