Netskope's Mike Herman: 'Partner enablement is most important to us'

Zero-trust network access provider is heavily investing in training partners, according to channel VP

Netskope is investing heavily in the training and enablement of partners, considering this "most important" to them, its vice president of channel sales Mike Herman tells CRN.

"I've been at Netskope for almost three years, the company is in its 12th year now and from the early days, Netskope was focused on going direct to customers as many start-ups do," he explains about the vendor's journey into the channel.

"But when I joined, we were already significantly invested in the channel as our primary route to market, though not our only one.

"I made the decision to go 100 per cent partner-driven in EMEA and Latin America."

He says Netskope has had a big investment over the last two years, growing the team to around 30 people now focused on channel managers, dedicated partner resources in customer success and marketing, and systems engineering across EMEA, LATAM, and APAC.

"It's been a good ride with around 400 partners across that geography. We have focus partners we work closely with, and a longer tail we are developing.

"In the past at other vendors, hitting revenue goals was key to partner tiering. We turned that on its head - enablement is most important to us.

"The more people partners train in sales and delivery, the better they understand the technology and deployments, so the more they will sell.

"We focus on training first to drive pipeline and revenue."

He says Netskope's channel team runs classroom and remote training with focus partners. They train distributors to extend their reach and offer fast-start packages to get new partners mentored by the professional services team through their first deployments.

"The combination of training plus mentoring gets partners up to speed quickly.

"Rather than just proposing what they already sell into accounts, we educate partners on choosing our technology when it's the right fit and taking costs out."

Presenting to CISOs

Herman talks about the focus points the company uses to present its technology to CISOs.

"We focus on their infrastructure pain points and key use cases we solve, like replacing VPNs with zero trust network access.

"Most customers are looking at zero trust due to challenges with legacy tech.

"We highlight capabilities like user coaching that help security leaders enable employees while improving security.

"Removing hardware costs as they move to our SASE platform also resonates with leadership."

Getting in the spotlight

Herman explains one of the main challenges Netskope faces at the moment is getting visibility and mindshare versus larger competitors.

"I can't cover all partners so picking the right ones that are addressing our key enterprise customers and use cases is critical.

"Partners also worry about cloud providers, but we leverage partner programmes to keep them central."

In an effort to accelerate growth with its channel, Netskope recently appointed Jenn Jakubowicz as senior director of global channels and alliances marketing, responsible for all aspects of global partner marketing execution.

Herman says that in the few weeks since joining Netskope, Jakubowicz has already made a big impact on its partner programme.

"Based on her previous role, Jakubowicz understands the tools we need to attract partners to our programme. Many of our partners focus heavily on driving top line revenue growth, so we build programmes to help them increase incremental revenue.

"Other partners care more about improving bottom line profit, and their sales teams are compensated accordingly."

In the last few weeks, Jakubowicz has brought valuable expertise in designing programmes to meet both revenue growth and profitability goals, according to Herman.

"For example, we used to hold global prospecting days for our own sales team to reach out to target customers about our VPN replacement offering. These events generated significant new sales opportunities.

"Jakubowicz has suggested inviting interested partners to join these prospecting days too. In our last event, bringing in partners drove up overall demand."

"Channel partners deliver around 91 per cent of total cybersecurity spend worldwide. With so many vendors competing for mindshare, we must give partners compelling reasons to highlight our solutions with customers.

"The best way to earn that priority is by showing partners how they can profit from selling our technology."

Netskope has been growing as a company over the last couple of years through acquisitions - such as the takeover of digital experience monitoring firm Kadiska - and with increasing commitment to the channel.

In July 2023, it also launched a new MSP partner programme as "growing need for specialised security talent fuels demand for managed services."