'I want our partners to invest in services' - CrowdStrike's EMEA channels VP
John Taylor took the reins as VP of EMEA channels and alliances earlier this year and outlined his top priorities to CRN
Cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike's fresh on the scene boss of European partners wants to see them investing in their services offering.
Chatting to CRN on his appointment earlier this year, John Taylor, VP of EMEA channels and alliances at CrowdStrike, said he is encouraging channel partners to inject capital into services.
"I want them to invest in services. A lot of our partners understand our product, understand who buys it, and understand where the differentiators are," Taylor said.
"But where we're trying to encourage our partners to go and invest is on the development of services around that because if they develop professional or managed or support-based services that they can take to market, then the journey with CrowdStrike is going to be that much more profitable for them.
"It's going to provide them with a relationship that's much more than one dimension, and it's also got longevity."
CrowdStrike isn't the only vendor actively encouraging partners to start building out a managed services offering, with the likes of Zyxel and Netskope telling CRN they too are asking partners to start focusing on services.
"If you've got a recurring revenue stream, which isn't just associated with the renewal of a product, but it's associated with the renewal of a managed service or hosted service, then there's much more incentivisation there for you as a partner to go and make sure you do that."
Continue reading to find out what John Taylor's short-term and long-term focuses will be for the next 12 months...
'I want our partners to invest in services' - CrowdStrike's EMEA channels VP
John Taylor took the reins as VP of EMEA channels and alliances earlier this year and outlined his top priorities to CRN
CrowdStrike's EMEA partners VP's short and long-term focus
Taylor revealed his most immediate priority revolves around shaping up the team that has fallen to him.
"I've inherited a talented and large team so my first job has been to align them all into one team to make sure that there are common goals, common tools, common approaches that they're taking out to the partners."
Some of CrowdStrike's channel partners include Eviden (an Atos business), Telefonica, BT, Softcat and Cancom.
Looking more long-term, CrowdStrike's EMEA partner boss explained how he has his sights set on standing out from the crowd.
"It's about making sure our partners understand how we're different from other players in this market," Taylor said.
"To make sure they understand we're a platform and not a point solution. And what we provide a platform for them on which they can have long term sustainability, and business."
"One of the things that we've been doing with the team is to engender a culture of business generation," he added.
"So make sure the partners understand what our platform does, and where it operates. It's not just about endpoint protection, they can go and talk about identity and threat, intel cloud, all of those great things that we do in the security landscape that then help them go and generate new business for their existing and their new customers."
'I want our partners to invest in services' - CrowdStrike's EMEA channels VP
John Taylor took the reins as VP of EMEA channels and alliances earlier this year and outlined his top priorities to CRN
EMEA plan
Outlining his game plan for the EMEA region, Taylor said his responsibility is to ensure partners have the right support they need across CrowdStrike's end-user segments, enterprise, corporate and SMB.
In March the vendor reported major growth through MSSPs as it increasingly targets SMBs with its cloud-native cybersecurity platform.
"What I'm trying to get to, is to have partners that buy into training investment with our business. We'll help them with partner and pipeline generation and then when they need it, we'll help them take those deals to closure.
"Not all partners want to take the whole journey with you. Some partners only want to take certain parts of the platform out to market, and that's fair enough.
"But what we're trying to work out is which partners want to take the whole platform and who can we work with in order to do that and help them go and generate new business results."
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