L-R: Paul Barge, Wahab Yusoff (Delinea)
Privileged access management vendor Delinea is sticking to quality over quantity in its channel strategy for the next 12 months, focusing on just 17 core partners across A/NZ.
Rebranded to Delinea in February out of a merger between Thycotic and Centrify, the vendor is focusing its efforts on showing loyalty to its existing partner base, with partner alliance manager for A/NZ Paul Barge claiming that 17 is “the right number for us”.
Of that 17, 14 are from Australia and three are from New Zealand.
“We have a product range that spans enterprise high-level users right down to the SMB [small- to medium-sized business] marketplace and we think we've got a very good mix of partners at the moment that can cater for all those customers' needs as far as the size of customers is concerned,” he said to ARN.
Currently, Delinea operates on a two-tier system, with Delinea VP for Asia Pacific and Japan Wahab Yusoff stating that value-added resellers, independent software vendors and systems integrators, coupled with emt Distribution, now part of Rhipe, its distributor in the region, are “very key” to its operations.
For its core selection, the vendor said it isn’t focusing its attention on recruiting extra partners at this time.
“We believe for the next 12 months, 17 is the right number of partners. We have to stay loyal to those partners that have invested,” Barge said. “We are a channel-only model. So, we have a selling team with a presales team in A/NZ, and we will be focusing on work with the opportunities with those 17.”
However, Delinea is not cutting itself off from discussions with new partners entirely and is now working with emt Distribution to find “casual partners” on the side.
“We won't close the door on a partner who approaches and has the right DNA,” said Yusoff. “It's just that we are being very a bit discerning at this stage that we are in.”
Regardless of casual or focused, Delinea is still set on investing in its partners, with it providing post-sales professional services, as Barge claims he sees this as where partners start to make considerable margins and profits when they sell a vendor solution.
“We want to make sure you're the one that can actually deliver on the solution and implement the solution well but we will also be obviously working with the sales teams and the presales teams to get those opportunities through the door,” he said.
Delinea is also focusing its efforts towards partner education, with it holding a five-day boot camp for its 17 local partners in July, resulting in certifying 27 individuals in its solution.
Expanding on this is the next step of bringing in experts in the region to conduct dedicated training, for additional professional services training.
“That’s what I think we can do a lot of. We started, but we can do more,” Yusoff added.
