CRN: One of the key themes throughout the conference was partners' collective move towards managed services models with an emphasis on recurring revenue. Is this something Grey Matter is exploring and how does the relationship with ESET play into that?
SH: "At the moment, we're sticking with a traditional one-year, two-year, three-year subscription model, but the MSP model something we may explore in the future.
"But I think in terms of the managed service piece, where we've had some success, especially early this year, is we closed a managed detection deal for a big insurance company in the UK. That's where we're focusing.
"For me last year, that was my biggest point - getting that message out to customers that if you're of a certain size, and you're in a certain vertical, if you work with government, if you're in the finance sector, education, etc, a managed SOC service should be a consideration for you.
"ESET were hugely helpful to us on that front, helping us to organise a webinar on the topic with their experts, focusing on the interaction between automation and human insight to stay ahead of security threats.
"So whilst we're not really going into the MSP piece ourselves, we are engaging quite frequently on the managed detection piece, as well as some of the deployment services that ESET offer."
CRN: Where are you directing MDF funding this year?
SH: "This year, we wanted to do a lot more in person events. Last year, we did a good two or three webinars with ESET. But this year, we've really said, 'let's get a face to face customers, because that, for us is still the best way.'
"And I think, obviously, around COVID that dropped off quite a lot – we're used to being face to face, so we're excited to use this partnership to enable that.
"So we've already run an event in London this year and we've got an event with them in July, in Bournemouth that we're customers along to. This is really leveraging the incentives that they've created for us this year, which again, is helping us drive that managed services piece.
"We've come up with a few different ideas, but the key is that we don't just want to do a burst of activity and then drop off. Instead, we want to run events throughout the full year to keep driving business growth.
"And ESET have really been that partner to sit down with us and be open and flexible around these events."
CRN: Arguably the biggest talking points at the conference have been around MDR and AI. How have these tech trends enabled client conversations for Grey Matter?
SH: "On the AI front, Microsoft Copilot's early release programme was big for us. Because we obviously work with a lot of ISVs, the GitHub coding piece drove a lot of interest. Additionally, the data piece with Power BI, data warehousing, data translation. And again, as soon as Copilot got launched, the immediate question was ‘How do I get it? I want it now.'
"In terms of MDR, we like to go in and offer a solution to a customer, after listening to what their concerns are. We're not there to try and replace everything that they've got with a single solution but rather, fill in the gaps.
"After listening to their problems and the resource that they have, then we'll usually offer ESET Protect Complete or Protect Advanced – the former is one that tends to get more traction because it sits around the 365 piece
"But more and more we are hearing people say ‘Well, it's just me.' Even as business size increases, often times for a 250 seat business, we'll hear that there's one or two people looking after cyber.
"That's where the MDR conversation is invaluable because of these tightening budgets."
