CI Security Announces Second Generation Partner Program

CI Security on Wednesday announced a major revamp of its original Critical Insight partner program. The expansion includes new partner types and new regions.

The company’s roots focus on protecting critical services industries such as health care, utilities, state and local governments, and law enforcement. But over time, it has broadened its customer base. CI Security customer organizations tend to be upper midmarket to lower enterprise, or companies with 500-5,000 employees.

CI Security’s Colin Brissey

“This is a second-generation channel partner program,” Colin Brissey, vice president of sales, told Channel Futures. “With the revamp, we’re opening up new channels. In particular, our new three-tier distribution model opens up opportunities in new markets. We also want to be flexible in the way that our customers can buy.”

For the first time, the managed detection response (MDR) vendor has signed up with three-tier distribution; in this case, distributor Synnex. CI Security’s partnership with Synnex expands the vendor’s reach in the U.S., Canada, Japan, China and Latin America.

“Access to resellers in those geographies is important to us … [and] the lines of credit that Synnex provides are attractive to those resellers, as well,” said Brissey. “We want to be as flexible as possible and able to work with resellers on the terms that they’re used to.”

Synnex partners will have access to the following services: Critiical Insight managed detection and response for networks, AWS, O365 and Azure; log retention, security assessments, penetration testing and vulnerability scanning.

In a recent brief on the impact of COVID-19, research firm IDC predicted spending on security-related professional and managed services, now and in the future, to remain strong.

IDC expects to see vulnerability management services gain steam as testing the effectiveness of security controls in a changing IT environment grows in importance. Vulnerability scanning, breach simulation and pen tests are areas where IDC expects to see more spending.

What’s New

CI Security is also working with national group purchasing organizations (GPOs), which provide contract vehicles for customers. Telco agents, as well as global VARs, are also now welcome in the Critical Insight partner program These new partner types join the vendor’s existing reseller partner base, which totals about 60.

The updated program also includes new resources, marketing coordination, a new partner portal, and a “better together” story.

The vendor has repackaged its professional services that help customers with compliance, regulatory requirements, penetration testing, incident response plan development, and more.

“We’re repackaging these services so channel partners can offer them,” said Brissey. “These are full-service offerings.”

Resellers make margins reselling CI Security services, and the vendor doesn’t reduce the margin after the first year. This is a longstanding practice for the company. In addition, there’s a new heavily incentivized deal registration program.

“If a partner services a deal, there’s contractual protection for them that puts them at a significant advantage,” said Brissey. “It’s a contractual obligation to protect a customer relationship.”

For now, the partner program has a single tier, but expect to see CI Security add a premium tier later.

CI Security says an ideal partner is a firm that has made investments in cybersecurity and is working with customers in this area.

Today, about half (50%) of CI Security fulfillment is through partners. The company’s long-term goal is to be a channel-first company, 100% channel-driven.