Security Automation Startup Torq Rolls Out First Partner Program

Torq, the security automation provider, has launched its first partner program, the Torq Partner Acceleration Program, for VARs, MSPs, MSSPs, SIs and more.

With the Torq Partner Acceleration Program, there are no more silver, gold and platinum tiers. Instead, Torq offers its partner ecosystem a customer outcome-based tiering system. Margin opportunities are aligned to the joint partnership investments made to position, implement, operationalize and support Torq Hyperautomation.

The program offers three tiers: reseller; post-sales and professional services support; and MSP/MSSP full life-cycle management. At the MSP/MSSP level, partners are guaranteed a 25% margin, the company said.

The security automation provider’s partner ecosystem already includes AccessIT, Compuquip, ICM, Logical IT, Myriad360, Spico Solutions, Trace3, Wiz, SentinelOne, Sentra, Snyk and Recorded Future.

Acceleration Part of Security Automation Provider’s Evolution

Sheldon Muir, Torq’s head of global channels and alliances, said the new program is part of Torq’s evolution as a startup. Torq’s goal with the new program is to become 100% channel sales.

Torq’s Sheldon Muir

“You build the product, you get a few customers using the product, and then leadership decides at some point that they want to make the investments in the channel and bring on a channel team,” he said. “And we’re at that stage now. I’m going on my eighth week, and those investments were probably decided about a quarter ago. Torq went out and did their due diligence, and ended up hiring me to to get this channel program off the ground.”

Torq received customer feedback in terms of what they’re looking to accomplish with its technology, Muir said.

“And it’s always outcome-based technology, so we wanted to create a partner program that in many ways started with customer outcomes,” he said. “And then [there] is the partner. What incentivizes a partner to make the investments in a startup like a Torq when they have many hundreds, if not thousands of other manufacturers on their line card, What’s going to incentivize them to make sure that these customer outcomes are met and so on. ”

Opportunities with Security Automation

Torq partners are co-selling Torq Hyperautomation, an enterprise-grade security hyperautomation platform. It provides the ability to automate all workflows and processes across the entirety of modern enterprise security organizations to deliver end-to-end cybersecurity protection.

In addition to guaranteed margins, partners selling Torq Hyperautomation, the company says, benefit from higher win rates, sales enablement. comprehensive training resources, scalable services and technical assistance.

“Our tiering and our investments that we ask of our partners are commensurate with the investments they want to make jointly and deliver to their customers,” Muir said. “So we make it very easy for a partner to come in at the entry level with very little investment. Sure, they need to go through a basic level of training to just understand what our general value proposition is and how we compete with our competition so that they can take that knowledge to their customers. But as you go up through the tiering, you make additional investments in the Torq relationship by getting post-sales delivery folks, support folks, maybe managed service folks to make those investments. So that extends to the customer outcome.”

Expanding with Partners

In the coming months, Torq will continue to ramp and build its global presence with its partners, Muir said.

“Our strategy is not to sign every partner on the planet,” he said. “We’ve got a very focused strategy. We want to partner with partners that want to work with us and make these investments on the customer outcome. So in terms of what they can probably foresee from us over the next six months or so, it’s going to be a very intimate relationship, making sure they’re successful, which in turn makes our customers successful.”

“The market has been flooded with a lot of solutions and products from multiple vendors,” said Jay Chappell, Trace3‘s vice president of pre-sales engineering for the Mountain States region. “Customers are looking for ways to simplify their security posture and that is happening through hyperautomation. Torq is a proven thought leader in this space. Simplification through hyperautomation is definitely the need moving forward.”