Infoblox Partners to Play Key Role in Company's Continuing Transformation
Infoblox 3.0 means making networking and security simpler.
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Sandy Janes, Infoblox’s acting channel chief, said partners performed strongly over the past year.
“We saw a 40% increase in partner-generated revenue over the last year,” she said. “And when you think about what’s happened in the world, the challenges that many of us have had, this is an outstanding achievement. In the last year, we saw the market come towards us. The work from anywhere trend that will continue has provided tremendous opportunities for our partners.”
Many partners “leaped” into Infoblox’s BloxOne Threat Defense solution, and grew security by 58%, Janes said. In addition, partners brought new opportunities from existing and new accounts.
Moreover, partners are increasingly delivering as-a-service solutions, generating additional revenue, she said.
Last year, Infoblox rolled out its professional services program. It allows partners to go to market with Infoblox services using its enablement tools, methodology and documentation.
“We recently worked with Forrester to interview partners around the world to see how that’s starting to work for them,” Jane said. “And what we learned is that when partners delivered Infoblox services on top of a solution, they saw blended margins in excess of 30%. That’s outstanding. For those of you who haven’t started to enable professional services, I encourage you to speak with your channel account manager about this opportunity. There’s tremendous margin available for you.”
Hoke Horne is Infoblox’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. He said Infoblox has invested over $150 million and counting in the BloxOne platform.
“So we are well set up to survive into a SaaS, modern cloud-based world,” he said. “In addition, we’re investing in our channel because our success depends on your success. A lot of vendors are calling on you, looking for you to allocate your limited people, your limited dollars and your time in them. And I can tell you Infoblox is right there with them. We want more than our fair share of all of those things because we want to make sure that you can make more money investing in us.”
Infoblox has made the shift to subscriptions and is going to “lean in hard on that” in the coming months, Horne said.
“We believe in the subscription model,” he said. “That is the wave that is running throughout the tech industry; in fact, throughout the economy. Ninety percent of the time customers are choosing subscriptions and we’re going to drive that closer to 100%.”
Vendors are making bets today of whether they should go direct or through channel, Horne said.
“Ninety-five percent of our business goes through you and I don’t see that changing,” he said. “We’ve invested a lot of money and a lot of people in the channel, and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Vic Northrup is Infoblox’s acting executive vice president of worldwide field operations. He said the accelerated work-from-anywhere transformation created holes in security and other capabilities.
“One of the things as a company that Infoblox is really focused on is our DNS and security capabilities, and being able to bring a work-from-anywhere solution,” he said. “That’s still a gap that exists in the marketplace, and it’s still an opportunity for us and our channel partners to be successful. And you have more solutions around that. It won’t go back to the way it was and it’s something you should look forward to building on moving forward in the digital transformation.”
Infoblox 3.0 is more about customer experiences, Northrup said. The key to growth is making sure the experience and the value provided to customers through using Infoblox in conjunction with partners is as quick and realizable as possible.
“In order to do that, we need to work as one team,” he said. “We’ve got the selling experiences, which drives the SaaS growth. Many of you have already started moving down the SaaS path, and for those who haven’t, this is how most of the infrastructure companies and the networking companies will end up going to market.”
The opportunity for partners is expanding their existing bases, Northrup said. And focusing on security will help with that.
“We’ve been able to grow our revenues about 30% just by adding security in our Infoblox 2.0 solutions,” he said. “And with BloxOne Threat Defense and BloxOne DDI, our SaaS solutions, and what we’re going to be able to build on those and come to market quicker, we think we’ll be able to get that number up to 50% of our growth.”
The SaaS intelligence platform provider gave partners access to its first formalized sales program.
Previously the company had only utilized a referral program for indirect partners.
“It was time for us to explore and begin to lean into the channel,” ZoomInfo’s head of channel sales and alliance said.
Executives said they tailored the program to partners’ unique business models.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
Infoblox also announced its latest partner awards. They are:
· Partner of the Year: World Wide Technology
· Expansion Partner of the Year: Optiv
· Distributor of the Year: Carahsoft
· Breakthrough Partner of the Year – SaaS: Empowered
· Specialization Partner of the Year – Security: Presidio
Infoblox also announced its latest partner awards. They are:
· Partner of the Year: World Wide Technology
· Expansion Partner of the Year: Optiv
· Distributor of the Year: Carahsoft
· Breakthrough Partner of the Year – SaaS: Empowered
· Specialization Partner of the Year – Security: Presidio
Infoblox partners will play a crucial role in the company’s next phase of transformation, dubbed Infoblox 3.0.
That’s according to Jesper Andersen, Infoblox’s president and CEO. He unveiled the company’s next phase during Tuesday’s Infoblox Americas Virtual Partner Summit.
Infoblox’s first phase involved becoming a public company and establishing leadership in DDI, Andersen said. The second phase then involved going private under the ownership of Vista Equity Partners. It also moved from selling perpetual licenses with attached maintenance to increasingly selling subscription services.
Last fall, Vista Equity Partners sold one-half of Infoblox to Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm. That’s prompted more investment in innovation and growth, Andersen said.
It also prompted a McKinsey study of Infoblox’s market opportunities in both core DDI and security infrastructure services.
Infoblox’s Jesper Andersen
“I think of Infoblox 3.0 as this next phase … think three, four years out into the future,” Andersen said. “This is really the result of what came out of that McKinsey study.”
Big Opportunity in Cloud-Native Edge Services
Infoblox competes in three different categories: core network services, foundational security services and cloud-native edge services, Andersen said. The BloxOne platform is giving Infoblox and its partners opportunities in cloud-native edge services.
“McKinsey says that market in 2019 … was $3.5 billion and their assessment is that growing to $5.7 billion in 2024,” he said. “That would be an aggregate compound annual growth rate of 11%. I actually think it’s at least a few percentage points higher.”
Infoblox 3.0 means making networking and security simpler, and being more proactive than reactive with customers, Andersen said. It’s also less about managing customers and more about creating value for them, moving faster for customers, and making more informed decisions. In addition, there’s more M&A in Infoblox’s future.
“In Infoblox 3.0, if anything we are doubling down on our commitment to our channel, to you as partners,” he said. “There’s a lot of discussion in our industry around how, in a SaaS world, because we see what customers do and because of automation making things simpler, that maybe we didn’t need our partners. That is not how I see the world. I think we need our partners more than ever, and I think our partners need you as well.”
So what does Infoblox 3.0 mean for partners? Scroll through our slideshow above for more details.
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