'7 Minutes' with Demisto Worldwide Director of Channels Wayne Goeckeritz

**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.**

The global security orchestration market is projected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 16 percent through 2025, and Demisto plans to make the most of this growing opportunity.

In 2017, the security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) vendor saw customer growth jump 300 percent over the previous year, and added six new Fortune 500 companies. It also doubled its workforce, grew its partner network, and expanded the functionality and distribution of its offering.

Demisto Enterprise integrates with more than 170 security products and allows organizations to build playbooks for different security operations. By integrating other security products with Demisto, users can orchestrate actions across a suite of products in one window, automate response actions through playbooks, and run live security commands from a collaboration interface to remediate threats.

Demisto’s Wayne Goeckeritz

Last month, Demisto announced its Enterprise app for Palo Alto Networks. The app will allow users to leverage Demisto’s security orchestration and automation capabilities via the Palo Alto  application framework to “rapidly act on rich, relevant security data and accelerate incident response,” it said.

In a Q&A with Channel Partners, Wayne Goeckeritz, Demisto’s worldwide director of channels, talks about what his company has to offer partners and its plans for rapid growth in the coming years.

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

Wayne Goeckeritz: Demisto’s “secret selling sauce” is its trinity of case management, orchestration and automation all woven into a seamless experience in its platform. No other SOAR vendor can do this. In addition, with more than 180 product integrations and growing, Demisto allows partners to leverage their entire product arsenal — with no “unseeding” of any others in their portfolios.

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

WG: Our channel program is an open, non-exclusive program with gold- and silver-level discounts. Demisto also works with distributors outside of North America and we strive to be 100 percent partner-friendly.

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

WG: Approximately 80 percent of our business is run through the channel. We have 60 partners and our average margin is 25 percent. However, we have a deal-registration program that allows for even greater margins.

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

WG: Our main competitors are Phantom (acquired by Splunk), Resilient (acquired by IBM) and ServiceNow. Demisto has a better offering as we are the only SOAR vendor that offers case management, automation and collaboration in a single platform that can be delivered on premises or in the cloud with full multitenancy.

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

WG: Demisto will continue to grow its entire SOAR platform with new integrations into…

… cloud security, vulnerability management and other partner solutions. We also plan to increase focus on the MSSP market with enhanced multitenancy and scalability.

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

WG: We will expand, broaden and refocus on different markets and geographies as our strategy deems fit.

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

WG: You never asked us how cool we are. Demisto was just listed as a Cool Vendor in Gartner’s 2018 Security Operations and Vulnerability Management report.