SYNNEX has launched an outsourced managed security offering designed to help partners without in-house security expertise provide advanced services to their clients.
The new managed security service provider support program includes SIEM, managed firewall, cloud access security broker (CASB), analytics, and other offerings from Fortinet, WatchGuard, Palo Alto, and an array of additional vendors.
Security operations center (SOC) and network operations center services are available through the program as well, along with hardware installation assistance, onsite and remote software deployment help, and more. Partners can offer most of those services on a white label basis.
“It’s an end-to-end lifecycle security managed solution from identification to remediation, reporting, and support, including education,” says Reyna Thompson, senior vice president for North American product management at SYNNEX.
Thompson spoke with ChannelPro at the 2019 SYNNEX Inspire partner event, which is taking place now in Greenville, S.C. In the past, she notes, managed security offerings available through SYNNEX have focused on individual vendors. The new service is the first from the distributor to offer a mix-and-match menu of products and services from multiple suppliers.
“We want to be able to go to the partner community and say ‘we can deliver security however you want to consume it for whatever manufacturer,'” Thompson says.
SYNNEX expects demand for the program to come from two core constituencies: partners new to security who need a quick way to get started and partners with existing security practices who wish to expand into new specialties. “They may or may not have that knowledge base internally in their organization, and partnering with us as an extension of their organization makes sense,” says Thompson of the latter group.
Services generally and managed services specifically play key roles in SYNNEX’s strategy for pursuing a security market opportunity that will be worth an estimated $103.1 billion globally this year, according to IDC, and grow at a 9.2% CAGR through 2022 to $133.8 billion.
Though Tech Data and other distributors are eyeing that pool of dollars hungrily as well, SYNNEX plans to set itself apart by serving less as a permanent extension of partner workforces than as a source of long-term guidance on achieving self-reliance.
“They just want to be able to deliver the service. We want to be able to enable the partner so they can be educated and deliver the service on their own at some point,” Thompson says. “At the end of the day, the health of the partner and the viability of the partner is more a focus for us.”
The new team of partner enablement specialists SYNNEX is currently hiring illustrates that point, she continues. Tasked with helping partners build and refine security practices, they provide advice on sales, service delivery, product selection, and more. Significantly and unlike many enablement offerings from other distributors, Thompson contends, that advice isn’t tied to specific manufacturers.
“We’re really trying to take a vendor-agnostic approach when we’re addressing the partner,” she says.
Comprehensive offerings with multiple solution and services components like the new MSSP program are another core piece of SYNNEX’s strategy. “We want to be able to go beyond just the point products and the network layers to this more lifecycle, end-to-end security play,” Thompson says.
SYNNEX’s 2017 acquisition of security, communications, and networking specialist Westcon-Comstor has played a major part in making its services push possible. In addition to relationships with vendors that SYNNEX didn’t support before, like Cisco most importantly, Westcon brought a deep pool of services talent with it.
“One of the values of the Westcon acquisition of a couple of years ago is our professional services portfolio has expanded tremendously,” Thompson states.
The managed security program unveiled today is the latest addition to SYNNEX’s SERVICESolv program, which already included security advisory and strategy consulting, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, and incident response and remediation services, among others, along with presales assistance and certification training.
Services are increasingly a priority for all of the industry’s top distributors as they transition from product sales to solution delivery, and attempt to bring partners along with them. Tech Data, for example, offers a range of outsourced security services through its RECON program. Ingram Micro and D&H, meanwhile, have been beefing up services for video wall, digital signage, and other pro AV solutions as well.
Tech Data is also investing heavily in enablement initiatives like its Practice Builder program for partners entering the security and cloud computing fields.
