'7 Minutes' with OneLogin Channel VP Matt Hurley

**Editor’s Note: “7 Minutes” is a feature where we ask channel executives from startups – or companies that may be new to the Channel Partners audience – a series of quick questions about their businesses and channel programs.**

A year ago, identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) provider OneLogin was recovering from a security breach that shook both the business and its culture.

Since then, the management team has been restructured and the company has refocused to attract larger enterprise customers such as Airbus, Mitsubishi Electric and NASA. Now, OneLogin is growing rapidly with a new development center in Seattle and new cash from investors.

OneLogin’s Matt Hurley

Last month, OneLogin appointed Matt Hurley as vice president of global channels, strategic alliances and professional services. He previously was Juniper Networks’ corporate vice president of global brand and field marketing.

And early this month, the company rolled out platform enhancements aimed at advancing multifactor authentication (MFA) adoption in the enterprise with a new login experience and the release of OneLogin Protect 4.0. The enhancements provide increased security and customization for both administrators and end users, the company said.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Hurley talks about what OneLogin has to offer the channel and how it’s taking on other cloud IDaaS vendors.

Channel Partners: Tell us what customers love about your product or service. What’s the secret selling sauce?

Matt Hurley: We’re great to work with, as our customers tell us. Our agility is something we pride and reward. Our early leaders came from the channel and we have always been partner-first in our go-to-market approach. When it comes to our product, security is our No. 1 value and priority at OneLogin.

Further, the product just makes sense. In a world racing more and more toward cloud and cloud apps exploding on the scene, identity management has never been more important from both a company security perspective and user-productivity requirement. Bundle that with our on-prem product – Access – and you have a way for the CIO to address the entire enterprise identity security challenge in a financial model that allows them to break free of traditional IT gridlock.

CP: Describe your channel program — metal levels, heavy on certifications, open or selective, unique features? Do you work with masters and/or distributors?

MH: OneLogin’s channel partner program offers SIs, distributors, VARs, MSPs and security providers an opportunity to expand business with industry-leading cloud solutions for the desktop and mobile world. For companies we choose to partner with, we offer competitive margins, robust enablement and flexible (go-to-market) support. We’re fully invested in enabling our resellers to …

… differentiate their services and increase profitability, while making customers more secure, productive and compliant.

On Sept. 12, we’ll be hosting our marque customer and partner conference where we’ll make several announcements around our partner program. I don’t want to give too much away, but look for OneLogin to make several announcements around the expansion of our program and noteworthy partner additions, all which are helping build out our footprint.

CP: Quick-hit answers: Percentage of sales through the channel, number of partners, average margin. Go.

MH: We have several hundred partners in our ecosystem, which include players in the technology, reseller and distribution focus areas. Specifically, in the United States we have some of the largest resellers like CDW, SHI and Softchoice, plus several large national security VARs. These players are augmented by a set of boutique solution-based resellers which round out our offer.

CP: Who are your main competitors, and what makes your offering better?

MH: OneLogin has pioneered the unified access management (UAM) category. As our product now unifies cloud and on-premises applications, we compete directly with other cloud IDaaS vendors such as Okta and Microsoft, and legacy on-premises tools from the the pre-cloud era like CA and Oracle. Our UAM platform is singular because we’re able to take Identity management, which has traditionally been on-prem, into the cloud. Now we’re enabling enterprises to combine cloud management with on-prem in a true hybrid strategy.

Regardless of whether a company is majority in the cloud, on-premises or hybrid, OneLogin has the most robust product suite for organizations standardizing on identity management. We’ve always been a leader in IDaaS and we’ve now augmented our platform with unique add-on products like Access, Desktop (and) Radius that offer unmatched capabilities for enterprises around identify and access management (IAM) and true real-time, adaptive security.

For our channel partners, specifically MSP and reseller, they can take advantage of some platform-specific features to better run their business. Our multitenant architecture and built-in reseller functionality makes it easy for partners to manage and support customer accounts.

CP: How do you think your technology portfolio will change in the next three years?

MH: Dramatically. We’re known for our innovation and laser focus on features that enable organizations to expand and meet IAM needs. We’re also growing very quickly, so you can expect we’ll have an even further expanded solution in three years. What won’t change is our commitment to customers and core philosophies. Today that’s what our 2,000 customers, including Airbus, British Red Cross, StitchFix, Susan G Komen, Steelcase, Evernote and Pac-12 Networks to name a few, have come to expect — and we’re excited to have more enterprises signing on with us, having recently signed Petco.

CP: How do you expect your channel strategy to evolve over that time frame?

MH: Unified access management is exploding in the Americas today, but that is just the beginning. Outside of the Americas, emerging markets are clamoring for products in our space thanks to their heavy adoption of SaaS apps, while larger companies in more developed markets tend to have a lot of on-premises infrastructure. Although the majority of OneLogin‘s customer base is in North America today, we’re targeting expansion of our market footprint in (the) Middle East (and) North Africa, India and Australia/New Zealand to name a few.

CP: What didn’t we ask that partners should know?

MH: Great question. I would say stay tuned to OneLogin as our partner program is expanding and will be announced on Sept. 12 at Connect.