Partner Content: Q&A - Zscaler and Computacenter talk partnership, SASE demand and cyber threats

Oliver Chapman and Justin Brooks discuss their partnership and SASE solutions with CRN, highlighting the benefits for customers

Relationships that stand the test of time prove to be the most resilient, and Zscaler and Computacenter’s decade-long partnership continues to grow in strength as the market consistently evolves.

Talking about the history of this partnership, CRN sits down with Computacenter Solution Area Director for Networking, Security & Smart Infrastructure Oliver Chapman; and Justin Brooks, VP of UKI at Zscaler.

Could you provide insight into the duration of the partnership between Zscaler and Computacenter? How was this collaboration established, and what strategic value does it bring to your organisation?

Oliver: Our relationship has matured over the years, providing a sense of reassurance to many of our customers. However, the real catalyst for the partnership happened five years ago during the pandemic, when enterprise organisations had to rapidly adapt to a vastly distributed workforce; ensuring consistent connectivity and security for both their users and customers.

Since then, the partnership's gone from strength to strength, as we've executed collaboratively time and time again, against our purpose of helping our customers change the world.

I always want to work with individuals and organisations whom I trust and know can deliver value to our customers; I have endless confidence through this partnership and the people involved, that we can continue to deliver incredible solutions to some fantastic organisations.

Justin: Zscaler and Computacenter have been working together for almost a decade.

Things have evolved within the last few years, where we developed into a strategic partnership.

As demand for zero trust has accelerated, Computacenter became more than just a reseller to us, but a trusted advisor with deep expertise in complex IT environments that is supporting digital transformation journey’s of their customers.

When I think about the partnership, and what makes it strong is that Computacenter understands how to implement and integrate zero trust security at scale.

With any good partnership it is all about delivering outcomes and helping our customers together to move away from legacy security models, while ensuring their businesses are being run securely, improving agility and enhancing operational efficiency.

Justin: The cybersecurity landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. Some of those government regulations and compliance in the UK for example is the National Cyber Security Centre synthesizing the importance of zero trust security models, putting pressure on organisations to modernise.

We also need to consider hybrid workers and cloud transformation; employees are working from anywhere and businesses are moving to the cloud. Companies need fast, scalable cloud security solutions, which is what we provide. Computacenter also plays a huge role in helping those organisations navigate through this transformation.

If you think about what it is that we do, we enable global operations with a “zero trust everywhere” approach. I like to say, we don't just secure your business, we enable you to run your business securely. Global organisations have operations in multiple countries. They might have manufacturing sites, branches, warehouses, all those have IoT, OT, you've got a remote, distributed workforce.

At the same time there are new emerging security threats in the wake of AI. There's different operational needs and you want to be aligned to each of those. If you're not doing it securely, you'll never realise your global strategies. So that's where we like to align.

Oliver: I mentioned the pandemic which had an enormous impact on our partnership, however these challenges were compounded by other market trends which have consistently required us to refocus, learn and adapt quickly. We must operate with a degree of sensitivity to the complex and sometimes unique circumstances that our customers are facing. Bringing the user closer to their application of choice and simplifying connectivity have been vital in keeping up with demands. We have far less patience as consumers of technology now, and the risk associated with delivering anything other than impeccable level of service can jeopardise productivity and revenue for our customers.

The cyber threat landscape continues to expand, and for many organisations, there's not always a wealth of skill to rely upon to ensure visibility of threats and effective mitigation.

At Computacenter, our customers are at the core of everything we do. We have been working with many customers to consolidate their security tooling, allowing smaller operational teams the insight and control to best avoid breaches and protect their users and customers. The Zscaler platform gives customers the opportunity to collapse surplus infrastructure down from sometimes five or more tools to a single plane, enabling better operational efficiency and consistency in security.

The skill shortage remains a challenge to this day so our combined capability in partnership is still hugely relevant to large organisations as it has been for the last five years.

How does the Computacenter and Zscaler partnership deliver value and impact to your customers?

Justin: In today’s market, companies are inundated with security vendors, making it difficult to identify who truly adds value. Computacenter cuts through the noise and offers expert guidance to our joint customers. One key aspect is the end-to-end security transformation. Instead of merely selling security tools, we architect zero trust transformations in collaboration with Computacenter. This partnership ensures that businesses can achieve security from anywhere, raising their security posture to become ‘Resilient by Design’ with a zero trust approach that limits the attack surface of modern organisations by replacing hardware legacy security infrastructure.

Computacenter offers expertise and ensures that the Zscaler security platform is properly designed, deployed, managed, all eliminating risk and complexity.

Additionally, with our joint global coverage we provide cloud-based and AI-enabled security solutions that work seamlessly across numerous industries, regulatory frameworks and global operations.

Oliver: Computacenter has the greatest services capability of any VAR globally, and when you combine that with market leading technology, you have a compelling partnership for organisations looking to drive their business forward.

Our customers are all service providers to some degree, whether that is delivering services for their customers, their employees, their guests their patients or our children – we live in a world where connectivity and security have never been more important and as networking and security converges it is no longer purely about the final outcome but the process you take to get there.

True transformation, as we've seen, requires behavioural change at an organisational level. Many of the initiatives that we have collectively undertaken involve the bringing together of multiple business units; this can be very costly and complex to navigate, and it requires a sensitivity to the culture of each customer that we engage with.

The good news is that Computacenter and Zscaler have a well-trodden path and extensive lessons learned library associated with these kinds of initiatives, and we're able to take the customer by the hand and ensure we deliver rapid time to value, ensuring simplicity in execution, alongside a clear roadmap for longer term operations.

How have you scaled your resources to match the demand for SASE solutions?

Justin: Zscaler made significant investments to ensure we can meet the growing demand for SASE.

We’ve doubled down on AI driven security analytics, risk-based access controls and advanced data protection to keep up with the evolving threat landscape.

We scaled our partner ecosystem with dedicated enablement frameworks for all our partners, including Computacenter, putting specialised training, certifications, and co-selling resources into place.

Oliver: With regards to scale, this is not just a local initiative. We have seen the demand shift in our customers from the initial desire to rethink secure connectivity, which certainly still exists in many organisations, and we're in constant dialogue with clients about how we can help them to evolve and transform their environment over time; to maximising investments and accelerating time to value.

With any new architectural initiatives, we often see a lot of misinformation in the market. Many find themselves in a situation where they have not been treated with a level of sensitivity required for complex transformations.

Instead, they have been sold products that are now failing to meet the expectations set. This is why we’re committed and passionate about ensuring our customers receive the utmost care and attention throughout their journey with us. SASE is a process, and the requirement of skill to assess, design, implement and maintain this initiative is key to the delivery of a successful outcome. We have learned a lot during our partnership and apply intentional recruitment (coupled with sound-boarding) and feedback from Zscaler to find the right individuals with the appropriate sensitivity to this kind of transformation and intimacy to the Zscaler technology ensuring that at no point does a customer feel they’re on their own.

How is Zscaler driving growth and opportunities for partners?

Justin: We see partners as an extension of our team. They are not just selling our technology, but also aligned to driving customer outcomes.

Computacenter is a prime example of a partner that's unlocking new opportunities by helping customers adopt, implement and maximise our platform.

By expanding our platform offering, we in turn assist our partners with further growth opportunities, introducing new advanced solutions like AirGap, Risk360, AI driven threat detection, OT and IoT security, giving our partners the ability to differentiate themselves, along with Zscaler.

This article is sponsored by Zscaler.