Adopting a channel-first strategy enables Tenable to decrease time-to-market, gain access to new competitive markets, establish direct sales channels and also focus on training.
As we usher into 2022, it’s time to look back and take stock of the channel performance of leading vendors and distributors and the key achievements and take-aways from the Channel Market. More than this, it’s pivotal to get a hang of the key predictions for the Channel Market for the year 2023.
The year gone by will go down the memory lane as a year of mixed experience. Starting from the widening market opportunities to a somewhat visible respite from the raving pandemic, from being the year of Europe’s greatest war since World War II that pushed the pandemic-battered global economy and the European markets into recession to a year of greater cybersecurity concerns — 2022 has seen it all.
In a series of interactions with the poster-boys of Indian IT, SME Channels embarks upon understanding how leading vendors have fared in the year gone by; what drives their growth engine; the key milestones for 2023 set from the channel perspective; key channel predictions for the New Year; direction for channel partners and their growth roadmap for 2023.
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“It is crucial for channel partners to frame cybersecurity solutions within the context of specific business needs in order to truly help organizations tackle the damaging effects of cyberattacks.”
Kartik Shahani,
Country Manager,
Tenable India
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We spoke to leading Cybersecurity player, Tenable to get a sneak peek into its performance in the channel market and its key channel predictions for 2023.
A global Exposure Management company, Tenable caters to approximately 40,000 organizations around the globe and helps them understand and reduce cyber security risks. As the creator of Nessus, Tenable extended its expertise in vulnerabilities to deliver the world’s first platform to see and secure digital assets on any computing platform.
Tenable India’s Country Manager Kartik Shahani has been spearheading the company’s initiatives in the enterprise security market. He manages operations and continues efforts towards turbocharging its channel networks in India. Armed with extensive experience in telecom, finance and govt. sectors, Kartik. has been instrumental in driving Tenable’s growth momentum in India.
In an exclusive chat with SME Channels, Kartik Shahani, Country Manager, Tenable India, reveals his company’s key channel Predictions for 2023, major achievements and the unique matrixes that design his seminal vision for the Partner Ecosystem. Edited Excerpts:
As the war in Europe refuses to end anytime soon and China bubbles with uncertainty and the world economy is yet to come out of the pandemic shock, what major security trends would you forecast for 2023?
According to PwC’s global Digital Trust report, organizations in India are bracing for a catastrophic cyberattack. In fact, 1avast majority (77%) of organizations in the country say the threat from cybercriminals is the biggest concern.
5G rollout: With the 5G rollout in India, cybersecurity will be a major concern. More than half (52%) of Indian enterprises want to start using 5G within the next 12 months. Organizations would be at greater risk as securing 5G networks is drastically different from 4G. Poorly configured IoT devices and supply chain vulnerabilities expand the threat landscape further.
Nation states targeting managed service providers: Nation states will begin to target cloud service provider (CSP) managed services as companies migrate more of their attack surface to these managed services. Cloud adoption continues to rapidly rise, in fact, CSP managed service market is projected to grow to $117.65 billion by 2028, a 14.5% spike from 2020. While there are numerous benefits to cloud adoption and outsourcing cloud services to a MSP, the opportunities for exposure increases significantly, which attackers will without a doubt capitalize on.
Shift to exposure management: As organizations tackle threats from various ends, using point tools and reactive approaches to security won’t cut it any more. Reducing risk is more than patching vulnerabilities. It requires a contextual understanding of the length and depth of the attack surface — or the ability to predict, prioritize and remediate. If organizations do not shift their approach to cybersecurity, they might find themselves in the deep end.
What key megatrends do you foresee emerging in the channel market?
The economic uncertainty will mean that organizations will be hamstrung to finance cybersecurity programs with limited staff. There’s an opportunity for channel partners to be more strategic with their customers, particularly those partners offering managed security services. There’s no one size fits all approach. This is the time to engage and act as trusted advisors to help address gaps in knowledge and expertise. It is crucial for channel partners to frame cybersecurity solutions within the context of specific business needs in order to truly help organizations tackle the damaging effects of cyberattacks.
Which areas do you want to focus on in the channel – skillsets – sales and marketing, vertical and technology practice development, service capability, etc.?
At Tenable, we invest in supporting our channel partners with the necessary training, certification, and collaboration to enable them to deliver our exposure management solutions to customers. The Tenable Assure partner program helps MSSPs and resellers act as expert advisers, who in turn help organizations reduce their cyber risk. We enable our partners to translate raw security intelligence into an actionable, risk-based, metrics-driven program for customers.
Our certification program also enables MSSPs and resellers with a wide range of sales and technical training content. These come in easy-to-grasp educational videos that help our partners design and deploy effective risk-based exposure management solutions.
What is your expectation from the channel this year?
As a channel-first company, Tenabe’s partners are an extension of our business in India and the rest of APAC. Adopting a channel-first strategy enables us to decrease time-to-market, gain access to new competitive markets, establish direct sales channels and also focus on training. Tenable has always been committed to a channel-driven business model in APAC and we provide partners with regular business planning sessions, training certifications and dedicated marketing support to generate leads for their sales teams. In 2023, we will continue to do the same.
This year, with the help of our channel partners, we want to focus on exposure management, to help organizations gain a holistic view of their attack surface and manage vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, identities, cloud, web apps, attack pathways and internet-facing assets in a unified space. Our goal is to help organizations eliminate data silos and harness the power of the data they generate to see what an attacker sees, prioritize and eliminate risks to reduce overall cyber exposure.
