‘We were arrogant in the past. That will never be the case’ - CEO Bob VanKirk

SonicWall’s CEO talks fresh growth in transacting partners, how it’s helping channel firms, and where he thinks partners need to start moving towards

SonicWall CEO Bob VanKirk lists two priorities for him in 2025: the threat landscape, which is keeping him “up at night”, and an agnostic approach after admitting past bouts of arrogance.

VanKirk joined the vendor in 2018 and stepped up as CEO in August 2022.

With more than two years under his belt at the helm of the cybersecurity firm, VanKirk speaks to CRN about what is top of his agenda right now.

“No question, the threat landscape and the threat actors do keep me up at night,” he reveals.

“We added 24/7 by 365 SOC services as one of our acquisitions.

“We view security services as not just a ‘nice to have’ for any size partner, for any size business, they are a must have.

“That’s not up for discussion.”

He adds SonicWall has been focused on how to make security services available to small MSPs as well as larger MSSPs.

“If you look at the number of partners that have 24/7 by 365 SOCs it’s not that many.

“That is a fundamental layer of security that partners and customers require.

“So what we've tried to do is work out how you offer those as a white label capability. How do you offer those through partners?

“We’ve tried to expand our offering again, make it available to any size partner, make it cost effective, and allow them to offer the service.”

VanKirk reveals another priority is shifting to an agnostic mindset, admitting SonicWall had previously made assumptions on the scale it would be adopted.

“The other approach is recognising, I admit, we were arrogant in the past to think that everyone would standardise on SonicWall,” he says.

“That's not going to be the case, and it will never be the case.

“Yes, we will provide key capabilities, but MSPs and partners will provide a host of capabilities to their end customers.

“What we’re focused on is providing an agnostic approach and taking that to the market.

“So if a partner comes to us and says, ‘hey, we've got Sophos for endpoint’, we’ll support that with our managed security platform.”

SonicWall is partner first

The vendor came out of its 15-year M&A hiatus in 2023 when it purchased SolutionsGranted.

“We did three acquisitions in four months at the end of the prior year, and we continue to do integrations with those new capabilities and solutions with our existing solution set and take those to our partners,” VanKirk says.

“We spent a good bit of last year ensuring those solutions were MSP and channel friendly.

“And through Q3 and Q4 we saw those efforts pay off with strong growth amongst our partner ranks.”

He adds SonicWall’s organic strategy will continue looking at how it can round out key capabilities to further support partners.

“It's no question. It's a combination of organic and inorganic growth. But what we also came to the realisation around a couple years back was, you can only do so much with OEM relationships.

“You can only do so much from a strategic partner standpoint, on the technology front, and some of these capabilities you have to have in-house, some of these capabilities you have to have integrated into your core solutions. Cloud native is a good example of that same thing for services.

“I stepped into this role a little over two and a half years ago, and the approach that I took with the rest of the leadership team was we're going to start with our partners.

“We truly re-engineered every aspect of SonicWall based on the insight and feedback we received from our partners.

“Everything from supporting our partner programme, how we charge for our solutions, certainly our organic and inorganic roadmap.

“That partner-first approach drove our acquisition strategy, and we will continue leaning into partners moving forward.”

UK growth strategy

Last summer SonicWall unveiled a new European SOC alongside the launch of its new managed security services suite.

VanKirk said this element of the vendor’s growth strategy is “already paying off”, and explains where the idea stemmed from.

“With our managed security services, we stood up a SOC because of the feedback and the interest from our partners in the UK that said, ‘hey, we could use this capability, but we need SOC here in the EMEA region.’

“So we will continue to see strong growth from a security services standpoint.”

He adds cloud native technology is another key step in SonicWall’s growth plans, highlighting it as one of the company’s current major growth drivers with triple digit growth in Q3.

“We acquired Banyan Security last year.

“What we did for the first six months was integrate in the Banyan app to our Sonic OS, our firewall and our operating system.

“Mid-year, we announced that every single firewall now coming from SonicWall already has embedded that cloud native capability.

“So now what we are providing is a hybrid approach for our partners and customers to move towards true cloud native, without having to go full, all cloud.”

Partner strategy

VanKirk reveals that after five years of a steady decline in the number of transacting partners in the UK, SonicWall has started seeing an increase in the last year and a half.

The vendor is now “absolutely” on the lookout to expand its partner roster.

“How we’re driving that is we’re targeting MSPs, MSSPs,” he says.

“It goes back to how do you service the SMB? Around 70 to 80 per cent of our business is from the SMB space. About 20 to 30 per cent in in enterprise.

“Small to medium businesses depend on MSPs to provide the necessary level of security services.

“As a result we’re leaning in and focusing there.”

Partner focus

Outlining where he wants SonicWall’s channel partners to focus and invest, VanKirk highlights security.

“I think it’s important for them to recognise how important it is to move towards and offer security services.

“I think it’s important for them to recognise that their customer base will need to pivot more and more towards cloud native capabilities.

“SMBs haven’t made that pivot as quickly as the enterprise space, so we are 100 per cent on going to market through partners.

“It’s on us to help partners get there, but it is important for them to also recognise this is fundamental moving forward. And we’re willing to make the investment to get the training and position these new capabilities for our end customers.”