If we have passed an accreditation to actually deploy a technology, then why must we also pass certification for the same technology with their partner programme?
Sam Mudd
Role: Managing director, Phoenix Software
Which vendors are you focusing your technical and sales staff accreditation efforts on in 2022, and what are your ambitions for the partnerships?
The Phoenix ambition is to work our way to top accreditations and relations with our strategic partners such as Microsoft and Sophos and many more, and we have attained that in recent years. Then it is all about retention of those important investments you have made in your talent, and making sure your staff are happy and enjoy their work with you as an employer.
Are there any new/emerging vendors or technology areas where you are ramping up accreditation efforts?
SOC Services: MDR/SIEM/SOAR/incident response/threat hunting
Security Technology: threat intelligence services/perimeter security (firewalling/SASE/SD-WAN)/identity
Data Protection: zero trust data protection/immutable backup technology
…all areas of immense importance. No need to specify which vendors as a key part of our strategy is pick the right ones for our vertical industry needs, but suffice to say we are consistently watching the market for new vendors and their offerings to add to our ecosystems of partnership if we believe there is a good value proposition.
Read a summary of the CRN Vendor Report findings here
What's your biggest bugbear when it comes to vendor accreditation and training?
It's merely the balancing act of delivering on current customer contracts and managing utilisation demands along with our standards and vendor certification training. Having a project management plan approach to this, throughout the calendar year helps us track the periods when we will need to be internally focused.
If you could give your vendors one piece of advice on how to improve their accreditation/training process, what would it be?
Plenty of runway notice to what is needed (12 months in advance would be great) and a bit of latitude when it comes to understanding we are also running businesses that are customer facing, and every day brings its challenges and priorities that we must attend to. Avoid duplication! - this is aimed at vendors who have technical deployment certifications which are separate to their channel programmes. If we have passed an accreditation to actually deploy a technology, then why must we also pass certification for the same technology with their partner programme? This could help tremendously if they were intertwined!
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