The Exclusive October 2017 by Reseller Middle East

October 2017

GITEX Edition

REVOLUTIONIZING IT YOUR SECURITY GUIDE TO TRANSFORMATIVE SOLUTIONS

MEET OUR VENDORS

CONTENTS

Exclusive Networks Middle East MD Nathan Clements attributes the firm’s success to its competent team members.

Frederic Denoyel, CFO, Exclusive Networks ME, on the current credit challenges.

Nasser Al Abdouli from F5 on the role of partners in doubling the firm’s security business.

Meet Exclusive Networks’ proficient team members who work diligently to make the impossible possible.

SentinelOne’s Andrew Rattigan explains how channel partners can assist customers to create robust security strategies through its offerings.

Fortinet shares the major challenges that regional businesses are currently facing when it comes to IT security.

Ashraf Sheet from Infoblox, shares why the firm is focusing on quality rather than quantity for its channel plans and strategies.

Rubrik’s Mohammed Al Tamimi on how partners can effectively sell cloud solutions.

Learn about the new vendor partnerships that are strengthening Exclusive Networks’ portfolio. Published by

MD INTERVIEW

IN FULL FORCE NATHAN CLEMENTS, MD, EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS ME, PRESENTS AN OVERVIEW OF THE VALUE-ADDED DISTRIBUTOR’S OPERATIONS IN THE REGION AND ATTRIBUTES ITS SUCCESS TO ITS COMPETENT TEAM MEMBERS.

AN YOU SHARE HIGHLIGHTS AT THE FIRM OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS? Over the past 18 months, Exclusive Networks Middle East has been rapidly evolving and adapting to ensure we are ahead of the challenging market conditions. We have invested heavily in Saudi Arabia. Grant Taylor joined us in April 2017 as General Manager for the KSA market. We have opened a new and bigger office in Riyadh to accommodate our expanding team, and to offer larger demonstration facilities and training rooms for our accredited training courses. We’ve also added to our team in Jeddah. Our Saudi business is going from strength to strength. We’ve also added to our team in Egypt and Levant in response to strong growth and demand for our solutions and services in these countries. We have launched a Telemarketing team this year, based out of our head office in Dubai, to find qualified leads for our vendors and our channel. We have a number of market leading and disruptive vendors, so the market’s appetite to learn about what we offer has been encouraging. This has helped our telemarketing team to deliver on their promise of providing strong leads. Another highlight has been our appointment as an Infoblox

Authorised Support Centre. We have a long and successful partnership with Infoblox so it was only natural that we added support to our services portfolio. We now offer local language level 1 and 2 support across the region. This brings us closer to our channel and allows us to fill the gaps in their services portfolio to offer a true end-to-end service to their customers. We have also added three new vendors – Rubrik, SentinelOne and Gigamon. All have disruptive technologies looking for high double digit growth, which match our aggressive growth expectations. WHAT HAVE BEEN THE GROWTH DRIVERS FOR THE FIRM IN 2017? The obvious answer is to say our growth has come from our existing vendors, along with signing a handful of new associations. However, in parallel to this we have maintained and added some new faces to a great team. Having a strong, stable and highly motivated team has allowed us to consistently deliver good growth. We’ve worked hard to make Exclusive Networks a place where people aspire to work, and once here, the team members are constantly trained and developed so they can be the best in their fields. Our vendors and channel partners appreciate and understand the value of our team, and enjoy working with them.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

NATHAN CLEMENTS MD, EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS ME

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE MARKETS WHERE EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS HAS GROWN SIGNIFICANTLY? We have made a conscious effort to focus on the private sector, and we have been rewarded with significant growth from multiple enterprise customers, spanning across all countries. WHICH ARE THE TECHNOLOGIES YOU ARE ENCOURAGING YOUR PARTNERS TO BET ON FOR NEXT YEAR? It’s tough to pick just one or two vendors, every vendor we work with is compelling and disruptive for different reasons. I’m looking forward to seeing our new vendors continue to grow at a rapid pace. Rubrik and SentinelOne are my big bets for 2018. CAN YOU SHARE YOUR PLANS FOR 2018? If it isn’t broken don’t try and fix it! 2017 has been successful so far, so 2018 will see more of the same strategies with a few tweaks here and there.

CARM

KEEP CARM AND CARRY ON NEXT GENERATION, PROFITABLE, SECURITY BEGINS WITH CYBER ATTACK REMEDIATION AND MITIGATION (CARM)

ow more than ever, uncertainty enshrouds the IT department where IT security is concerned. Globally, there is a huge shortage of IT security professionals, and CISOs can increasingly be forgiven for feeling that they are fighting a losing battle. All kinds of cybersecurity issues keep IT leaders awake at night. Financial loss as a result of cybercrime is only the tip of the iceberg. Once customers have lost confidence in an organisation’s ability to keep their information safe, that organisation’s reputation is already in jeopardy.

Perhaps worse still is the threat that once a business is exposed to cybercriminals, they have got their hands on valuable transactional data, or have gained access to businesscritical systems. The reality is that the scope for cybercrime will only widen. As we increasingly move into a mobilecentric, digitally driven world, the window of opportunity for data theft and bad actors to triumph continues to increase. Factor in the prevalence of legacy processes and technologies, and it’s no wonder that organisations are now more vulnerable than ever to the threat of cybercrime.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty and masked menaces who are out to target your customers, a calm, rational approach to cybersecurity is a must. Exclusive Networks’ CARM approach puts channel partners in an extremely strong position to quickly identify any existing gaps in a customer’s security, while also delivering integrated and sustainable security solutions. CARM – Cyber Attack Remediation and Mitigation – provides channel partners with the framework and tools to identify gaps in their customers’ security regime, and how to effectively tighten their security policies to ensure compliance standards are met. CARM deals with the expectation that cyber-attacks will occur. It acknowledges that prevention, detection and reaction are all equally critical steps in a cyber defence strategy, and that no two customers have identical needs. It allows customers to opt for whatever blend of technologies will best suit their needs, and accommodates the fact that customers will be at different stages of their cybersecurity journey. Perhaps most importantly, the CARM approach has a positive impact on a business that goes way beyond an IT level. Now more than ever, cybersecurity is becoming a board-level issue, with senior management teams across the Middle East recognising the need to safeguard their organisations’ data. The damaging effects of data loss and operational disruption are multifaceted, but CARM provides a framework that allows an organisation to scale their security needs while complying with the highest possible standards. It’s easy for IT security to become a chronic headache for any organisation, but the CARM approach provides a way forward in what are, for far too many organisations in 2017, highpressure times.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

MEET THE TEAM

PASSIONATE AND DRIVEN EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS BOASTS A PROFICIENT TEAM WHO WORKS DILIGENTLY TO MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE. KEY EXECUTIVES FROM THE FIRM SHARE THEIR SUCCESS STORIES. SCHOLASTICA NYAMBURA, Inside Sales - Team Leader Inside Sales is the first point of contact for our vendors and customers. This is where leads are generated, processed, and provisioned for data analysis, which makes it a backbone of the company’s success. Through our Inside Sales team, we are able to maintain a very good relationship with our vendors and customers any time of the day. The Inside Sales team also helps in optimising stock and processing payments, while also guaranteeing that accurate quotes are sent to the customers.

OLIVER DOWNS, Sales Operation Manager Our Inside Sales Team, managed by Scholastica Nyambura, conduct all new business enquiries spanning across scoping, presales, quotations, orders, and post-sales support for our 800 plus reseller partners. Acting as a focal point for our customers, Inside Sales ensure that all enquiries are managed as efficiently and

quickly as possible. The team has increased 30% over the last 18 months to support the growth of our existing vendors, and our recently signed vendors such as Gemalto, SentinelOne, Rubrik and Gigamon. Our account managers and vendor specialists are tasked with travelling the Middle East, visiting our customer base and ensuring that both our vendors and Exclusive Networks are represented and well managed. As such, the Inside Sales Team of Exclusive Networks provide administrative support allowing our externally facing sales team to focus on growing and developing our business, whilst ensuring that our partners are serviced to a high level. The team is instrumental to ensure that both our customers, their customers, and our vendors are successful, and that their enquiries and orders are transacted in a timely manner. As the core engine of Exclusive Networks, their response times, accuracy and communication are key to ensure that organisations across the Middle East receive what they need, when they need it.

JIJO JOSEPH, HEAD – Strategic Accounts SMBs will spread their

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

IT investments equally across the three major categories – hardware, software, and IT services – with these categories accounting for more than 75% of total SMB technology spending worldwide. Apart from hardware and software, SMB spending on IT services will continue to be more than twice throughout the forecast period. The Middle East is one of the largest regions for SMB IT spending, with the continent growing faster than the overall market. SMBs around the world are increasingly interested in investing in resources to improve employee productivity and improve their competitive positions. For example, cybersecurity is a prime focus. There is a significant increase in the cybersecurity market because solutions now offer a number of options to save data. A major force driving the growth of cybersecurity is the need for stringent compliance and regulatory requirements. Increased deployment of web and cloud based applications are responsible for the rapid market growth, and the global cybersecurity market is expected to grow at approximately $251 billion by 2023. To shore up defences, SME organisations are investing in a wide range of security solutions, including endpoint security, antimalware, encryption, identity and access management, firewalls, DDoS, sandboxing etc.

MEET THE TEAM Unfortunately, SMBs are even less equipped than larger businesses to deal with cybersecurity business given their limited resources. Insufficient personnel or specialised presales resources act as the biggest challenge to a strong cybersecurity posture. A training initiative can sound like a lot of work, so seek out a provider experienced in getting effective training up and running quickly and easily. Exclusive Networks offers intelligence and expertise to help our partners design and implement effective channel strategies to drive successful relationships with their customers. We are helping our partners rethink the foundations of partner go-to-market and market coverage, to support the new partner models, and identify and analyse key industry trends and their impact on upcoming business. This helps channel partners to develop and fine-tune their programmes and strategies to focus on a specific customer segment or vertical. All vendors realise that in order to reach their objectives, they cannot go it alone. The combination of value added distributors and partners will only be able to compete if it is part of an ecosystem. Business success depends for a large part on how the distributor and partners within that ecosystem are able to work together, co-develop, co-deliver or collaborate in any other form.

GRANT TAYLOR, General Manager, KSA In 2018, Exclusive Networks will celebrate its tenth year of business in Saudi Arabia. Over the last decade, we have built a great team here that are able to offer both pre

and post-sales technical support, as well as marketing and sales services. The past twelve months have seen consolidation in the Saudi office, after we moved to a new purpose designed office and brought new members of staff to augment the existing team’s strengths. In many ways, that has mirrored the market forces here. Saudi Arabia has reduced its reliance on oil money and budgets have become tighter; we have seen a normalising of the market leading resellers having to get big, get niche or indeed get out of the market. In that time, Exclusive has redeployed staff to support our partners and we have worked hard to create a team that can offer true value to the channel and fill the gaps in any resellers skill sets or knowledge. All of this means that Exclusive Networks Saudi is exceptionally well-placed to deliver real value to partners, and that our tenth year of business in the Kingdom promises to be our most successful yet.

real-case scenarios, and locate the right combination of skills, experience and extensive expertise to deliver up to date and the best quality hands on training. This, in turn, will increase the customer staff contribution to the business, resulting in a better level of customer services. The IT industry is rapidly changing, and in parallel, the awareness of corporations for skills upgrade and being up-to-date with the latest IT changes. The skills of the company engineers represent one of the most important business elements today. Training presents a great opportunity to expand the knowledge of all employees, which will enhance their performance and result in financial gain for the company. Moreover, the training allows the employee to strengthen and improve their knowledge to brings them to a higher level of their career and make the company more attractive to potential recruits.

MOHAMMED OLAYAN, Technical Manager – ME Exclusive Networks have a world class training centre, providing a wide range of technical training programmes for IT engineers in the Middle East. EXN professionals have certified trainers with excellent academic and practical experience, delivering decent proven records of training programmes held all over the Middle East, with major IT solutions company. We assist our customers to develop the competencies and skills required in the ever-changing market requirements. Our training programmes are always accompanied with practical,

MALLIKA SHARMA, Head of Marketing With Exclusive Networks’ portfolio of disruptive technologies, we have evangelised an innovative ‘go-to-market’ marketing strategy for all our vendors. This is a win-win for us, our vendors and our partner community. In 2018 our marketing objective is to enable and grow our channel, which we will continue to achieve with our creative ROI-driven initiatives. As we are in a collaborative world, we are also enthusiastic about our new digital marketing efforts where we have an open forum to receive feedback as well as encourage new discussions with our Sales and Support team.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

COLUMN

CREDIT WOES

FREDERIC DENOYEL, CFO, EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS ME, DETAILS THE CURRENT CHALLENGES RELATED TO CREDIT AND THE WAY FORWARD FOR THE INDUSTRY.

FREDERIC DENOYEL, CFO, EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS ME

he Middle East IT channel sector, similar to other global emerging markets, function primarily on credit, to assist the smaller reseller partners in financing larger projects. However, credit issues continue to plague the regional IT industry and adversely affects resellers and distributors. Over credit and declining margins have even compelled some players to exit the market unlawfully, and the ripple effect caused by these incidents impact the overall industry. Partners need to assess and manage their credit risk. This is important to ensure the cash flow is smooth, which dictates a firm’s survival. What resellers need to understand is that every transaction can carry a

certain level of credit risk. They have to put measures in place to avoid the risk from materialising and also have a plan in case their customers do default. Long credit terms, which is a norm in this part of the world, do not help with the problem at hand. In other markets, we have seen shorter credit terms being implemented and working like a charm. Before a reseller initiates business with any party, it is imperative that they check their creditworthiness. How can they do this? Simply by taking the efforts to know their customers a bit more. Check on the company’s market reputation and try to do a risk assessment. The next step is to insure their business from credit related issues such as bankruptcy and delayed payments. However, the industry still requires a culture of perceiving the risk of non-payment. While there is definitely a need for better awareness and education in the channel market we are increasingly

Partners need to assess and manage their credit risk. This is important to ensure the cash flow is smooth, which dictates a firm’s survival.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

seeing our partners implement a strong financial plan. They need to constantly check their growth in turnover and profitability. As the market can be quite volatile at times, it is always a good practice to be insured and to have a detailed financial plan. Partners should increasingly focus on diversifying their business to include services. This will enable them to grow their margins significantly. As Exclusive Networks, we offer our partner network extensive training on how services can be added on to their portfolio for emerging technologies. We also undertake a number of partner enablement sessions and extend financial support to help our channel community sustain their growth. We have a specialised credit team who has the capability of addressing the diverse partner needs, while also ensuring minimum risks. The purpose is to offer maximum support and guidance to our partners whilst jointly minimising the risk. One of the major concerns has been the lack of government regulations to avoid credit-related issues and frauds. However, with the introduction of Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB) in 2014, the federal government firm authorised to implement and operate a credit reporting system across the UAE, we are optimistic that it will continue to reduce the challenges the IT industry currently faces.

INTERVIEW FORTINET

PREPARE AND PROTECT FORTINET SHARES THE MAJOR CHALLENGES THAT REGIONAL BUSINESSES ARE CURRENTLY FACING WHEN IT COMES TO IT SECURITY, AND INSISTS THAT ORGANIZATIONS MUST FOLLOW THE ‘SECURITY 101’ IF THEY ARE TO REDUCE THE POTENTIAL ATTACK SURFACE AND MINIMISE RISK.

newer methods of exploiting systems. We also see CISOs getting strategic with their security deployments, as best-of-breed solutions are no longer the norm.

ALAIN PENEL, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, MIDDLE EAST, FORTINET

AN YOU GIVE AN OVERVIEW OF THE REGIONAL SECURITY MARKET? The security solutions market in the region is experiencing massive growth as organisations start to realise the importance of securing their networks to keep cybercriminals at bay. The rising demand is also due to the number of recent attacks which have shown that organisations in the region are as vulnerable a target as the rest of the world. Security will play a crucial role in the current digital transformation trend, and as the adoption of emerging technologies like IoT, AI, and blockchain gain momentum in the region. Investments in security will increase as threat vectors increase, and cybercriminals begin to tap into

HOW CAN ENTERPRISES ENHANCE THEIR SECURITY POSTURE TO COMBAT EVOLVING SOPHISTICATED THREATS? Knowing is half the battle. It is essential that enterprises understand its business and have a good idea of its critical processes and data. The CIO also needs to identify cyber assets to know what operating system and applications are installed, through mapping the network architecture to understand data flows and possible blind spots. It is also important to get an idea of how threat actors will try to break in, and what resources they are most interested in obtaining. This means developing holistic architectures and selecting open solutions that allow devices to interact, share intelligence, and respond to threats in a coordinated fashion anywhere across your extended network. Following the security 101 is key. This can include regularly scheduled patching, replacing older and outdated technology, and appropriately segmenting risky application and device traffic such as IoT and P2P, which will all go a long way

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

towards reducing the potential attack surface and minimising risk. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO TODAY’S ENTERPRISE OPERATIONS? Organised and targeted cyberattacks are a top enterprise operational risk, as the cyber threat landscape continues to grow and the attacks and its sources get more unpredictable and hard to detect. Usually, cybercriminals do not usually discriminate among their targets, but because they are financially motivated, I believe that the BFSI and healthcare sectors are particularly vulnerable. WHICH ARE THE MARKETS WHERE YOU HAVE WITNESSED THE MOST GROWTH COMING FROM WITHIN THE MIDDLE EAST? The UAE is a key growth market for Fortinet, followed closely by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC. Alongside the public sector, we have seen growth from large enterprises and the banking and finance sector in these countries. WHAT HAVE BEEN TWO BIGGEST HIGHLIGHTS WITH FORTINET OVER THE LAST YEAR? The expansion of the Fortinet Security Fabric is a key highlight for us as it reinforces our commitment to provide

our partners and customers with end-to-end solutions. We received recognition from Frost and Sullivan as the UAE Network Security Vendor of the Year 2017, which highlighted our revenue growth and portfolio diversity, as well as demonstrating how our technology roadmap plans to provide solutions to deal with advanced network security threats. Gartner also recognised us as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management (SMB Multifunction Firewalls) for the eighth consecutive time, in addition to being named as a leader in Enterprise Network Firewalls. CAN YOU SHARE YOUR REGIONAL PLANS FOR 2018? Our plans are to continue with the growth momentum, and focus on helping our customers meet the security challenges that they face, as the adoption of new technologies such as IoT take hold in the region.

MANAL ABI RAFEH, REGIONAL MARKETING MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, FORTINET

MARKETING IS USUALLY NOT A PRIORITY FOR CHANNEL PARTNERS, HOW DOES FORTINET EDUCATE THEM ON ITS IMPORTANCE? Fortinet focuses on engaging its channel partners with campaigns and promotions

of the customer’s concerns and deliver the security components successfully.

ZACKY VAZ, REGIONAL CHANNEL MANAGER, FORTINET

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR PARTNERS WHEN ADDRESSING CUSTOMERS FOR THEIR SECURITY REQUIREMENTS? The biggest challenge that partners face is ensuring that they have the right technical resources and skill-set onboard. Customer’s requirements differ based on their business environment and their current vulnerabilities, and partners need to access each aspect of their business model before proposing a security solution. Specialisation will help them accurately understand and address all

that focus on its three most important pillars of growth: enable, promote and sell. We provide our partners with tools and programs explaining the technical enablement of business opportunities and value propositions. We also enable channel partners to promote solutions to their audience in a variety of ways – either online, offline or at events. Finally, we support sales efforts to convert opportunities into customers. This enables our partners with the right go-tomarket strategy to create their pipeline and close opportunities to ultimately increase revenue. WHAT ARE THE STRATEGIES IN PLACE TO MAXIMISE MDFS? Our marketing strategy starts with the end-customer in mind, and maintains the vision of positioning Fortinet as the

HOW CAN PARTNERS SEPARATE THE ‘VALUE FROM THE NOISE’, WITH SO MUCH ALWAYS GOING ON IN THE SECURITY SPACE? Partners need to be trusted advisors to customers, and provide services rather than simply moving boxes. Customers rely on partners to manage their implementation lifecycle; partners should strive for value and differentiation by providing a full, 360-degree experience, from selling solutions to providing post-sales and maintenance as well. HOW DOES FORTINET EMPOWER ITS PARTNERS TO MAXIMISE THE PROSPECTS HERE? Through our various training workshops, such as the Fortinet NSE Program, that are conducted online as well as at partner’s premises, we help partners gain in-depth expertise across our full scope of integrated solutions. In addition, we also assist partners with marketing development and financial assistance.

end–to–end security vendor of choice. We implement initiatives that help us to reach out and engage with potential customers, in order to help them understand how Fortinet can help their organisation tackle today’s threat vectors. We have a specific emphasis on driving demand generation by creating diverse campaigns for different market segments, from SMB to enterprise level environments. CAN YOU SHARE KEY MARKETING INITIATIVES PARTNERS CAN EXPECT FROM FORTINET OVER THE NEXT QUARTER? Our partners can always look forward to our support in helping them to reach out to customers through our various customer-focused events that we plan to roll out in the region.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

INTERVIEW F5

DOUBLE UP NASSER AL ABDOULI, CHANNEL MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY & AFRICA, F5 NETWORKS, HIGHLIGHTS THE ROLE OF PARTNERS IN DOUBLING THE FIRM’S SECURITY BUSINESS.

HAT HAVE BEEN THE TWO BIGGEST HIGHLIGHTS AT F5 NETWORKS OVER THE LAST 6 MONTHS? We have been encouraged by our growing regional influence in application security and multi-cloud solutions. I believe that we are rapidly becoming a trusted and impactful security player, and our partners have been crucial to that shift. There are big opportunities in this space. In a digital-driven economy, applications deliver business services for a variety of access points and locations. This opens up new risks and attack vectors, particularly as IT teams extend security and encryption capabilities across cloud, data centre, and hybrid environments. When it comes to cloud, F5’s strategy is to address complexity head on. This includes tackling challenges related to managing application services, inconsistent policies, security, as well as results-driven performance optimisation. We want to give our customers the freedom to deploy any application – anywhere, and at any time. WHAT ROLE DO YOUR CHANNEL PARTNERS PLAY IN THE PLAN TO DOUBLE F5’S SECURITY BUSINESS? Our channel partners are central to our security ambitions. Today, it is important to note that application services need to operate across cloud, on-premises environments, and hybrid deployments. Companies can then scale IT resources across those environments, offering

the same optimisation, security and availability you would expect from a traditional deployment contained within a data centre. Together with our partners, we need to demonstrate that the way forward is very much an appcentric approach. It means fitting infrastructures around the apps and the needs of those who use them, resulting in better speed, reliability, availability and security. HOW DOES EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS SUPPORT YOUR OVERALL DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY? Exclusive Networks has strong expertise, excellent marketplace awareness and the ability to deliver the projects that matter. Their track record is impressive and they have proven a strong ally for F5 as we continue to develop our regional profile. HOW DO THEY MEET THE VALUEADD EXPECTATIONS? F5 only selects partners that are highly focused on enhancing the value of their investments for all types of customer IT deployments. As ever, our goal is simple: to help our Value Added Resellers sell more and earn more on each sale

Our channel partners are central to our security ambitions.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

NASSER AL ABDOULI, CHANNEL MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY & AFRICA, F5 NETWORKS

with high-quality, high-margin F5 solutions. Exclusive Networks performs very well in this respect. HOW CAN PARTNERS BETTER RETAIN CUSTOMERS FOR A LONGER TERM? At the end of the day, it is the partners that own customer relationships, so they must be accessible, adaptable and relevant. Repeatable business is very important to F5. One of the key ways partners can improve retention rates is through driving subscriptionbased licensing. More broadly, we are working with all our partners to increase their abilities and reach, including introducing more focused account mapping and planning sessions to ensure F5’s offerings are embedded into standard solution architectures. We also want our channel community to deliver more professional services. WHAT PLANS CAN THE MARKET EXPECT TO SEE FROM F5 IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS? In the next six months and beyond, you will see us continue to drive a customer-first approach, pushing repeatable business, empowering our partners and continuing to increase our security and cloud revenues.

INTERVIEW SENTINELONE

PARTNER TO WIN

ANDREW RATTIGAN, SENIOR DIRECTOR, APAC, AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST, SENTINELONE, EXPLAINS HOW CHANNEL PARTNERS CAN ASSIST CUSTOMERS TO CREATE ROBUST SECURITY STRATEGIES THROUGH ITS OFFERINGS.

HAT ARE THE LEARNINGS FOR ENTERPRISES FROM THE RECENT RANSOMWARE ATTACKS SUCH AS WANNACRY AND NOTPETYA? Several key learnings emerged from the recent WannaCry and NotPetya ransomworm attacks: • The speed with which the attacks spread was unprecedented for any previously known ransomware threats. • The attacks weren’t limited to organisations in a specific geography, vertical or of a specific size. • The impact was massive with WannaCry affecting 200,000+ machines across 100+ countries in a matter of hours and NotPetya costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars in impact. HOW CAN THEY ACHIEVE A ROBUST SECURITY FRAMEWORK TO AVOID BEING A VICTIM TO SUCH ATTACKS? Security must move beyond reactive signature-based defence to a proactive model in order to detect and protect against ever evolving attacks. Security response must be at machine speed to stop attacks that occur at machine speed. Automation is critical to scaling response time-frames, especially in light of skilled resource shortage. WHAT ROLE CAN CHANNEL PARTNERS PLAY TO HELP THEIR CUSTOMERS BE EDUCATED AND PREPARED FOR SUCH INCIDENTS? Channel partners are critical in order

to protect against the new breed of threats. They can: • Educate them on the various solutions and approaches to protection – especially the move to reactive to proactive architectures. • Define a scalable automation-driven architecture to detect and respond to threats in a timely fashion. • Look at solutions that grow with the customer evolution, allowing integrated capabilities for prevention, detection, response and forensics along with API interfaces to integrate within customer environments. • Simplify and accelerate customer adoption of new solutions through overlay services such as deployment, remote monitoring and response, etc. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE LATEST OFFERINGS FROM SENTINELONE

Security must move beyond reactive signature-based defense to a proactive model in order to detect and protect against ever evolving attacks.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

WITH WHICH FIRMS CAN CREATE A STRONG CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY? SentinelOne is a pioneer in delivering autonomous security for the endpoint, data centre and cloud using edge-AI to help business secure their assets with speed and simplicity. It unifies prevention detection response remediation and forensics in a single platform powered by artificialintelligence behavioural analysis and intelligent automation to enable organisations to minimise their time to protection. HOW DO YOU SEE THE CYBERSECURITY SPACE EVOLVING IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS? Customers will shift focus to three critical aspects that will drive cybersecurity: • Automation will be critical to scale security operations. • Speed of response will be a crucial measurement factor to minimise risk and empower business growth. • Deeper and richer visibility into cloud, data centre and endpoint, including visibility into encrypted traffic, will be critical to look beyond obvious threats. CAN YOU ELABORATE ON YOUR PLANS FOR THE REGION IN 2018? Over the past year, SentinelOne has experienced a huge growth in the UAE and across the GCC as customers deploy our revolutionary technology to protect themselves against all attack vectors, known and unknown. By the end of 2017, we would have established an office in Dubai with Arabic speaking local to support our expanding partner and customer base across the region. We expect our presence in the region to increase substantially in 2018 due to Middle East customer’s demands for better security solutions to protect themselves against the ever-growing threat landscape.

INTERVIEW INFOBLOX

REINFORCING VALUE ASHRAF SHEET, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MEA, INFOBLOX, SHARES WHY THE FIRM IS FOCUSING ON QUALITY RATHER THAN QUANTITY FOR ITS CHANNEL PLANS AND STRATEGIES.

ASHRAF SHEET, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MEA, INFOBLOX

AN YOU SHARE KEY ACHIEVEMENTS AT INFOBLOX OVER THE LAST YEAR? Over the last year, we have launched a new partner programme that’s focused on business development, profitability and enablement. The new programme offers rebate rewards as a way to incentivise partners to drive business with our security offerings. In addition, we have also introduced a new online channel enablement portal. CAN YOU ELABORATE ON YOUR CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVES? Our channel strategies are focused on quality and not quantity. We proactively look at establishing partnerships and strengthening relationships with select partners

across the different markets we cover where we can truly complement with to address key security, cloud and networking challenges. WHAT IS CURRENTLY THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FACED BY PARTNERS AND HOW CAN INFOBLOX HELP THEM OVERCOME IT? The digital disruption happening in the market is taking organisations by storm and customers are demanding

Infoblox has created and deployed a programme that focuses on helping partners identify opportunities to help customers with their digital transformation journey.

EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS NOW INFOBLOX MIDDLE EAST ASC PARTNER

n a recent partnership, Exclusive Networks has been signed up as an Infoblox Authorised Support Centre (ASC) in the Middle East. The distributor said the partnership is an extension of the firms’

nine-year association and long-term partnership. By opening an Infoblox Support Centre, the distributor aims to get closer to the partner base and provide more attractive value-added services in addition to the current

partners to help them flourish through all the chaos. Infoblox has created and deployed a programme that focuses on helping partners identify opportunities to help customers with their digital transformation journey. They are able to do this by evolving their cybersecurity and data networking practices while also technically enabling partners to deliver, enable and execute on these transformation projects. HOW MUCH GROWTH IS INFOBLOX LOOKING TO ACHIEVE AT THE END OF THIS YEAR? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE DRIVING FACTORS FOR THIS GROWTH? Infoblox has experienced unprecedented growth globally. This is primarily driven by global trends such as Internet of Things, cloud as well as the increasing need for innovative cybersecurity solutions. What’s more is that, our growth in the area of cybersecurity is even higher in the Middle East and Africa due to the geo-political conflicts that the region is experiencing.

professional services and training packages offered. As per the terms of the agreement, the distributor will offer 24×7 telephone and email support, technology health checks, and a range of hardware replacement options. The company will also provide enhanced services such as an engineer on site in many locations across the Middle East. There will also be a range of tailored support solutions offered, said the firm.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

VALUE ADDED DISTRIBUTOR FOR

DATACENTRE TRANSFORMATION

BigTec is the go-to value-added distributor partner for disruptive vendors at the heart of enterprise datacentre transformation.

As enterprises seek to increase the performance and flexibility of their core IT and data assets, while streamlining expenditure into an OPEX model, BigTec helps reseller partners harness opportunities from new cloud architectures and virtualised datacentre functions that are progressively more webscale and software-defined.

“BigTec is an Exclusive Group company with offices in the major global markets”

BigTec is now being launched in the Middle East and will feature solutions from:

Nutanix is the hybrid compute-storage platform for

Rubrik is the first cloud data management platform

high-scale virtual computing initiatives. BigTec is

that delivers data protection, search, analytics,

leveraging the power and flexibility of the Nutanix

compliance, and copy data management to hybrid

appliance to support high-margin sales as well as

cloud enterprises.

innova-tive approaches in the software defined datacentre.

• Demand Driven Control • Securing Virtual Environments • SDN/NFV, SD-WAN • Micro Services • Hyper-Converged Compute, Storage & Backup

Website: www.bigtec.com/ae Email: info-ae@exclusive-networks.com

BigTec ME

INTERVIEW RUBRIK

DON’T BACK UP. GO FORWARD MOHAMMED AL TAMIMI, SALES DIRECTOR, RUBRIK, ELABORATES ON THE FIRM’S CHANNEL STRATEGY AND HOW PARTNERS CAN EFFECTIVELY SELL CLOUD SOLUTIONS.

AN YOU GIVE AN OVERVIEW OF YOUR CHANNEL STRATEGY IN THE REGION? We are following a “less is more” strategy, meaning we are only onboarding a few very active and committed partners. We want to achieve at least a 10 percent market share of their profit in the addressable part of their business. To ensure the success of our strategy, this means we are heavily investing in our partners with regards to joint account planning, marketing, channel development, and technical resources and support. WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE FIRM IN THE LAST YEAR? A major achievement for us was the fact that we went from having no partners, to enlisting 20 strategic partners covering the Middle East region. In addition, we are now involved in numerous joint events, workshops

and roadshows on either a monthly or quarterly basis. WHAT IS YOUR FOCUS FOR YOUR REGIONAL CHANNEL PARTNERS? We will work closely with our partners to increase our ability to quickly win new enterprise customers with them. We will support them in setting up sales and marketing strategies, in order to encourage growing and repeating customer business for them. Our goal is to instead build up great joint initiatives with our existing partners to accelerate growth for both parties. WHAT IS THE OBSTACLE FOR PARTNERS WHEN SELLING CLOUD SOLUTIONS? While there’s a huge opportunity here for resellers, as with any technology, there are also things to avoid. Firstly, if your business is based on on-premise backup, then selling CDM has the potential to impact your on-premise revenue. Secondly, despite cloud’s

Despite cloud’s bright future, with many organisations working towards cloud targets, we must accept cloud isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

MOHAMMED AL TAMIMI SALES DIRECTOR, RUBRIK

bright future, with many organisations working towards cloud targets, we must accept cloud isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some traditional businesses out there will naturally resist against cloud usage, and these organisations are not your target customers. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR 2018? Our main goal is to get our focus partners to the next level of joint business. Our market opportunity is unique, and will enable us to achieve unprecedented growth in the coming twelve months.

Your Passport to the World of

Cyber Security

Exclusive Networks understands your business challenges and believes budget spent on IT education has to lead to tangible results. The importance of professional security training has never been more critical to your business. Exclusive Network’s courses offer a unique combination of field experience and Technical knowledge.

“

Instructors were easy to understand and very interactive with their students. They showed a lot of patience for all of our questions and really went the extra mile with delivering answers

“

Nikola Kukoljac Team Leader -Information Technology Department

www.exclusive-networks.com/ae

exn.me

exn_me

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Authorized ME Distributor

www.exclusive-networks.ae Tel: +971 4375 7612

NEW VENDORS

PROFITABLE ALLIANCES

GIGAMON JOINS EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS’ VENDOR ECOSYSTEM IN A BID TO ACCELERATE GROWTH AND HARNESS OPPORTUNITIES IN THE EMEA MARKET.

GARTH BRAITHWAITE, SENIOR SALES DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST AND SA, GIGAMON

s part of its efforts and commitment to expand its channel presence and accelerate sales across the region, Gigamon has recently signed a distribution agreement with Exclusive Networks Middle East for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. The network monitoring firm highlighted that it has ambitious growth objectives for EMEA over the course of 2017 and 2018. In this light, Gigamon aims to simplify its channel strategy and forge exclusive channel relationships. The company aims to ensure that they can maximise the business opportunities offered by Exclusive Network’s unique and proven approach to value-added distribution. The distribution agreement for Gigamon technology covers 15 countries across EMEA, extending

the Exclusive Networks partnerships already established in Germany, the UK, France and Spain into the Nordics, Middle East, Benelux and remainder of the DACH region. Key objectives for the remainder of 2017 include additional reseller recruitment while bolstering technical services, marketing and pre-sales support for existing and new partners. Exclusive Networks Middle East, Nathan Clements, Managing Director, said, “With unprecedented market change, a more monogamous vendor and distributor relationship has never been more relevant. We have known for many years that growth becomes faster and more efficient, and the focus is always greater within a shared mindset. This also leads to more successful risk-taking from strategic, long-term investments.” Clements added that Exclusive Networks sees that Gigamon has been steadily growing its influence in the EMEA market. “They offer a technology portfolio that gives unparalleled data-in-motion visibility into public, private and hybrid environments. Our businesses are a great fit and our combined efforts will accelerate them to the next level.” Gigamon provides active visibility solutions for physical, virtual and cloud network traffic, enabling stronger security and superior performance. The company’s pioneering Visibility Fabric and GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform, offers advanced intelligence to enhance the efficiency of security, network, and application performance management solutions

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

We have known for many years that growth becomes faster and more efficient, and the focus is always greater within a shared mindset leading to more successful risk-taking from strategic, long-term investments. in enterprise, government, and service provider networks Garth Braithwaite, Senior Sales Director, Middle East and SA, Gigamon, said, “Exclusive Networks’ business ambitions complement our growth strategy for the region. The value-added distributor have in-depth market knowledge and an extensive channel ecosystem through which they accelerate growth for transformative technologies. What also works brilliantly is that there are areas where we can collaborate effectively with Exclusive’s global cybersecurity vendor portfolio as most of them are our ecosystem partners. We are excited to meet the region’s demands around our Security Delivery Platforms and Visibility Fabric.”

NEW VENDORS

FORWARD AND UPWARDS

oday, organisations endeavour to shed complex, legacy multi-tiered solutions into simplified data management purpose-built

applications while ensuring they manage, secure and recover data across private, public, and hybrid clouds. The company’s flagship Cloud Data Management offering

ON GUARD

s cyber threats grow in diversity and sophistication, endpoint security is now more than ever a pressing concern. Today, AV-based software offers less and less effective protection for organisations, urging IT teams to adopt more advanced solutions.

Cyber-attacks today are increasingly targeting multiple vectors to ensure disruptions. SentinelOne’s Next-Generation Endpoint Protection helps defend every endpoint against multiple vectors of attack, from the traditional malware, to memory based exploitation, to script based attacks and live attackers, at every

combines seamless backup, recovery, replication, analytics and data management under a single platform. In addition, the firm’s offerings help eradicate daily operational management by enabling a single policy engine to orchestrate service level agreements across the entire data lifecycle. Over the past year, Rubrik has delivered record business growth due to increasing customer demand across enterprises of all sizes and verticals, including Fortune 500 companies. Exclusive Networks through its Data Centre distribution arm, BigTec, will feature Rubrik’s many innovative solutions during the upcoming GITEX Technology Week. Visit them at our stand to know more about how you can optimise their offerings to reduce cost and time-to-market while maintaining business agility.

stage in the threat lifecycle. It unifies prevention, detection, and response in a single platform driven by sophisticated machine learning and intelligent automation, enabling IT to predict malicious behaviour across major threat vectors, exploits, script-based, and file-less attacks in real-time. SentinelOne promises to deliver solutions that meet organisation’s critical infrastructure needs – scalability, cloud and on-premise management, offline support, and a Robust API. Visit Exclusive Networks, during GITEX Technology Week and find out how you can leverage SentinelOne’s solutions in preventing, detecting, and thwarting today’s cyber threats.

For more information, please write to: theexclusivesales-ae@exclusive-networks.com

Launching at Exclusive Networks stand at GITEX

Authorized ME Distributor