Stuart Robson-Frisby, Tanium

Stuart Robson-Frisby is the VP of EMEA channels at Tanium. He leads the strategy for EMEA with a team of 12 employees driving Tanium solutions into the EMEA partners.

Robson-Frisby has a unique understanding of channels having started his 17-year career in distribution, then working for a reseller whilst later helping to drive channels sales at Citrix, and more recently Ivanti. Robson-Frisby has a degree in Business Information Technology and understands what channel partners need to be successful.

Number of years in current role:

1

Number of years in current company:

2

Number of years involved in indirect/channel sales:

15

Reports to:

Tony Beller, senior vice president partner sales

Number of employees in channel organisation:

Declined to disclose.

What percentage of overall sales come through the channel?

Declined to disclose.

What is your personal channel philosophy?

I joined this organisation to help grow the emerging enterprise space and help improve the amount of net new business. We have a channel building managed services around our emerging enterprises and a partner base investing in professional services. The business is strong and the partners are investing.

What were your biggest personal channel accomplishments over the past year?

I've recruited a premier partner team and have worked to transform what was a direct sales organisation into a channel first organization.

My team has launched an MSSP programme designed around AppSec. We've also enabled many individuals in partner organisations and ramped up partner net new business.

What were your organisation's biggest channel accomplishments over the past year?

New product and pricing bundles, Great Place to Work awards and a partner-first go-to-market strategy.

What areas would you like to see your channel partners invest in in 2024?

Building out a managed service or professional service practice. This is where I believe most of the opportunities to find new customers will come and it makes the reseller more likely to keep the customer when it comes to renewal time.

If you provide your customer with a service rather than a license they will not want to move away from the value you are adding to their business.

What are the biggest challenges facing your partners in 2024?

Firstly, I'd like to see partners invest time in skilling up. This is not an easy task. When you take someone off paid engagements to train them on a new product that is a huge investment in time. You need to ensure they are then fully utilised to see the return on investment. Secondly, staff retention. We are still seeing a lot of employees moving between organisations, so partners need to make their employees feel valued to keep the salesforce consistent.

In what ways do you use your role to build equity and inclusion?

Tanium has dedicated resources to each partner route-to-market, able to serve their specific needs and strategies. We have heavily invested into meaningful distributor relationships poised to help partners onboard, develop, and grow their businesses with Tanium quickly.

At Tanium, we are stewards of a culture that emphasizes the importance of collaboration, respect, and diversity. In our pursuit of revolutionizing the way some of the largest enterprises and governments in the world solve their most difficult IT challenges, we are strengthened by our unique perspectives and by our collective actions.

Describe how your use of market development funds (MDF) is changing this year?

In 2024, Tanium is set to enrich our market development fund programme by introducing more co-funding and investment choices. We're ramping up our commitment, directing extra funds and resources to boost partners' sales and technical expertise.

Partners should look forward to impactful co-branded campaigns and demand generation initiatives, spotlighting new joint-technology solutions designed according to customer demand and in collaboration with Microsoft and ServiceNow.

The goal? Empower our partners to realise the market opportunity possible with Tanium by expanding their assessment, deployment, and integration service offerings to broaden customer engagements and pursue shared whitespace prospects.

What are your biggest channel priorities in 2024?

Improve partner technical skills, improve partner profitability and increase the amount of professional services going through partners.