Fortinet is a 100% channel company

Rajesh Maurya,
Country Manager, India & SAARC,
Fortinet

Fortinet’s India team is easily accessible to address partners' needs like customer account mapping, resource connection for large deals and marketing support.

The industry has a witness to the fact that when it comes to channel model, since its foray into the security space, Fortinet makes a different proposition. The company’s success in India, which is one of the most happening places for this security firm, is attributed to a great measure to its channel partners. 

“Fortinet is a 100 percent channel company” says Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet. Never in favour of overloading the channel, Fortinet believes in having selective channels. 

“Currently we are consolidating our strong channel base of 400+ registered partners and at the same time we are open to new partner engagements,” says Rajesh. 

Elaborating on the channel model, Rajesh says, “We have formed a Partner Advisory Council consisting 13 key partners who have in-depth understanding of security business and our aim is to consistently take their views and implement their feedbacks on GTM strategy, channel policies and program.” 

Fortinet’s India team is easily accessible to address partners' needs like customer account mapping, resource connection for large deals and marketing support. “We also have dedicated channel account managers in all regions to support partners,” Rajesh firms up. 

Training and Support

Proper training of the channel partners receives high priority in the Fortinet’s scheme of things. “The contribution from the channel in supporting our growth is paramount and we have ensured that our partners get the required support in terms of technical expertise along with sales and marketing benefits to grow their business,” says Rajesh. 

Extending all required support to partners to expand its business to new regions, new markets and adding new customers is the company’s priority to help the company maintain its growth momentum. “We will continue to support our channel partners, stay invested in research and development, and devise better strategies to add value to our partners and provide competitive security solutions to increase our market share.”

Customer retention with timely renewals and solution upgrades is another key area where Fortinet will be closely working with its partners.

Meeting the Customers’ demand

Fortinet is working on getting more certified partners to help them provide better support to customers and also learn about its new technology product offering. Certification will also help them come out of being box pushers or competing on price to start a value chain with technology specialization. Being a solution specialist in the long run will help them sustain and grow their business to more regions and technologies.

“We have implemented a comprehensive deal registration program which is integrated with our Salesforce.com platform. This has made the entire process from deal identification, to approval or rejection, to price clearances very transparent.”

Fortinet will also be organizing quarterly sales session to provide partners updates on markets, business opportunities, products, incentive programs and will help us improve relationships with partners.

The Fortinet offers an array a product lines that are designed to offer network protection services across the board. “One of the interesting trends we have seen is a demand from enterprises to opt for a single vendor to manage the firewall environments, rather than multiple vendors. Globally and in India, we are seeing several enterprises overhauling their perimeter and WAN security systems to move towards a single vendor. The main reason for this is that customers expect cost and operational efficiency in managing their security infrastructure,” elaborates Rajesh.

Security buyers are also seeking products that can provide a combination of firewall options such as NGFW (Next Generation Firewall), UTM, virtual and statefull firewalls to meet a wide range of enterprise needs from data centers to branch offices. 

These solutions protect enterprises against multi-vector attacks, which are becoming more sophisticated and plentiful. In particular, there is a need for specialized web application firewalls with the growth of web applications. .

This is the year partners can look forward to grow their Fortinet business in the face of new opportunities in Wireless, NGFW, Web Application Security, DDoS prevention and Sandboxing. “More importantly partners can look forward to earn better profit margins,” says Rajesh. 

As more enterprises embrace BYOD (Bring-your-own-Device), a clear opportunity has emerged for an end-to-end security provider like Fortinet to take a larger slice of the wireless pie. Fortinet offers strong value proposition in wireless LAN security through its range of FortiGate, FortiWifi and FortiAP product lines. “We are currently expanding our wireless partner base as a part of our strategy to increase our share in the Wireless Appliance market in India.” 

edit@varindia.com