Sophos CEO Joe Levy: ‘I've renewed our vows to the channel’

Levy stepped up as CEO in February and explains to CRN why he wants partners to start thinking about services

Sophos CEO Joe Levy is doubling down on the vendor’s channel business and the SMB space in a bid to drive growth.

Levy was named chief exec of the cybersecurity giant in February following the departure of Kris Hagerman.

Nine months into the top job, Levy speaks with CRN about his key priorities for the business.

“What I've done in this role that I think has been fundamentally important is I've renewed our vows to the channel,” he says.

“I’ve begun to look at ways that we could become the preferred cybersecurity vendor for the MSP population in the world.”

Part of this new commitment to the channel came in the form of the vendor’s Partner Care offering launched earlier this year.

“We do want to expand our channel base. I'm interested in both quantity and quality, finding the intersection of the two of those.

“By quantity, what I mean is we want to have a robust representation of channel partners. We want to be able to have good geographic coverage and good sectoral coverage. There are partners that specialise in certain industries, and we want to have that kind of sectoral and specialised representation.

“By quality what I mean is we want to help the partners continue to drive their own productivity, because the better we can help them to become productive and efficient in what they do, the greater affinity they're going to have for us as a vendor, and the more business we're going to be able to do together.”

Partner message

Levy's message to the Sophos partner community is simple: “Start thinking about services.

“Services are going to be differentiators in the industry, not just for us as vendors, and we've seen the great effect that diversifying from just products into services can deliver to our customers - better cybersecurity outcomes, better market traction, better cross sell within our portfolios, obviously a better opportunity for our channel partners as well.

“But you're out there competing with other resellers and MSPs. The better that you can demonstrate the value that you're delivering to your customer, sometimes this requires some bespoke software development within your own businesses, the better able you are to maintain those relationships and to just be sticky in your business.”

Levy adds he has also “redoubled” Sophos’ “devotion” to the SMB and to the mid-market spaces.

He claims that as an industry, there are approximately 7,500 vendors chasing about 2,000 customers globally, primarily in the large enterprise.

“There is an under-appreciation and an under-servicing of really good, innovative cybersecurity technology and services for the mid-market and for the SMB.

“If you consider the actual surface area that is exposed to the modern global economy, it’s primarily in the mid-market and SMB.

“The enterprises are very, very well protected, relatively. Somebody needs to look after the mid-market in the SMB. So I've unambiguously restated our dedication to the channel and the dedication to the mid-market in the SMB.”

Landmark Secureworks acquisition

Sophos joined the ranks of fellow vendors HPE and Cisco for making a monumental merger when it announced its deal to acquire Secureworks for $859m in October.

The all-cash acquisition for Secureworks, which employs 1,500 people, is on track to close by early 2025.

Commenting on whether to expect any more deals next year, Levy tells CRN M&A has historically been a growth engine.

“We've been very successful in not just the choices that we've made, but the way that we've run the integrations and the way that we were able to commercialise the innovations that we got,” he says.

“There's a lot of consolidation happening in the industry. And we go through these expansion and contraction cycles every five years or so.

“I think we're seeing a consolidation cycle happening now, and there probably is going to be some acquisition activity. I can't predict precisely what is going to be at this time, but I think M&A will continue to be an important ingredient within our corporate development practices.”