F5 EMEA channel director is betting on modern applications as major growth driver

Football referee turned cybersecurity leader Carl Berry catches up with CRN on his priorities, growth strategy and market challenges

Multi-cloud security and application delivery vendor F5 will see the bulk of its growth driven by modern applications.

That is according to Carl Berry, channel director, North and West EMEA at F5.

Berry has been with the company for two and a half years, having previously managed Fortinet's channel business in UK&I, and even spent some time as a championship level football referee.

Speaking to CRN about his priorities, challenges, and where he sees the biggest opportunity for growth at F5, Berry points to modern applications.

"Moving away from monolithic to modern applications, which are basically all the apps which produce rapid innovation," he explains.

"I think that is taking over enterprise portfolios. There's been such a huge shift and a huge growth in this modern application space, but actually that's created an exponential rise in APIs.

"We talk about modern applications and APIs, but then how do we secure those APIs, and the management of those APIs and understanding even where your applications and your APIs are.

"So managing those across a platform of multiple clouds becomes incredibly difficult. And then obviously that's a security posture, security and risk. So that is going to be a huge, huge driver for us."

Berry breaks down his priorities for the next 12 months, separating them as his personal focus and what's top of the agenda on the technology front.

"One of my priorities for the next 12 months is encouraging my team to continue to be inquisitive and accelerate their personal development and their personal ambitions.

"We've got a lot of new talent within the organisation. We're very much looking at internships and developing those individuals into associate partner account managers, partner account managers, and then senior partner account managers."

He highlights the word "inquisitive" because he believes the market is flooded with vendors and point products.

"We're one of those vendors, of course, and there's a lot of challenges in the market at the moment. So it's really just trying to identify the challenges for the customer and enable those partners to identify those challenges that our end customers are facing."

From a technology perspective, Berry states F5's SaaS-based security, network and application management services are a top priority.

The vendor has reinvented itself over the last two and a half years. Transitioning from a hardware-based engine to a software SaaS-based organisation.

"Continuing on that journey and creating that narrative is really important for us," Berry says.

"From an ecosystem perspective, it's facing and working with distribution, and how do we scale a place within distribution?

"From a partner ecosystem, I think MSSPs, MSPs and telcos, with our SaaS-based security, network and application management services, I think that's going to be really key, and an appetite for those particular partners as well."

Growth strategy, less is more

Berry outlines F5's growth strategy with a ‘less is more' type of approach.

"You can try and do everything or you can try and do a couple of things really well.

"So I think it's about having that laser focus, segmentation and understanding where our strengths are and maybe where our weaknesses are as well."

He underlines retail, especially online retail and the defence sector as strong markets for F5.

"There's some real key areas of strength, but of course, they may well be strengths for F5, but we're a channel-first organisation, so it's making sure we step away and we ask the question of our partners, where do they see opportunity? Where are their strengths? Where's their verticalization?"

F5 currently works with around 100 partners in the UK and mirrors its ‘less is more' outlook with partners.

"I talk about opportunity and appetite quite a bit within my team, because there's some very large, credible VARs in the UK.

"That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to have the appetite for F5 and that's me being very honest and showing some vulnerability," Berry admits.

He explains the vendor has to look at opportunity and appetite and how they are relevant for partners, and how the partner is relevant for F5.

"That will define what shape or size that particular partner is.

"We're never going to be that vendor where we've got hundreds and hundreds of partners on our line card.

"That's not something we're looking for. We're not a volume-based vendor.

"What's more important to me, and what's been a significant success this year, is the initiation of opportunity, which our partner communities bring to F5.

"We're a channel-first company, because we can't do it alone, and we recognise that.

"But now we've shifted to being this SaaS-based company, do we need to look at a different type of partner, a different type of SaaS partner, born in the cloud partner?

"Our eyes are wide open for that.

"So never should we say no. However, principally, we do want to make sure that there's opportunity and appetite from the partners to build upon the success and the opportunity they have by selling our solutions."

Do people understand genAI?

Berry touches on the challenges currently facing the F5 business, highlighting the complexity of the market and how the introduction of genAI is having an impact.

"There is so much choice out there in the market. And when you really start to drill down into the details, there's a lack of understanding around genAI.

"People talk about it, but is there an understanding?," he asks.

"And as you add more fantastic solutions and point products into the mix, it becomes even more complicated.

"So I think demystifying technology and understanding the challenges that the business is facing today and what the ultimate outcome looks like, I think that's incredibly important for us as we move forward."

Discussing other market challenges, Berry believes strains around budgets will continue for the foreseeable.

"I think there's been a slight lighting of that over the last three to four months. But I would say budgets are still there, but it's the scrutiny in the sign off and the sale cycles is taking much longer."