CPX 360: Check Point Unveils New Logo, 2022 Goals For Growth
Thousands of partners brought new customers to Check Point last year.
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Channel Futures: What prompted the logo change?
Check Point’s Frank Rauch: It was [the same for] 28 years. Nothing comes easy in changing after 28 years. But it’s time to give it a little bit of a new look. We’re very proud of the old logo and it served us completely well. But we wanted to do something that was a little bit more symbolic to our customers and our partners, and really the direction of the company. So if you look at the logo and the way it’s formed, it talks about cloud, email and mobile devices. It’s a little bit of that triad and that mix of technology, taking it away from just security or network security.
CF: How was 2021 for Check Point and its partners? Any significant achievements?
FR: We had a good year, there’s no doubt about it. We had a good year in the channel. We had a good year overall. We’re in a quiet period right now where we’ll be announcing earnings on Feb. 3, but I think outside of the numbers, we had about 900 partners that took their first order with Check Point. We had thousands of partners that brought new customers to Check Point. We had thousands of our partners that embraced our emerging technologies, cloud security, Harmony, some of the new quantum technologies, including Maestro, IoT and certainly all the partners that came over from Avanan as well.
We won a lot of awards for the partner program, which was great. But I think what’s more satisfying to me is just the feedback that I get from partners. I’m not able to mention a whole lot of names, but we’ve had partners that are absolutely household names that were never Check Point partners that are coming over to us. We have some of the largest partners that were our competitors’ coming over to us and saying we really like what you’re doing. So we’re seeing market share shifts that may have not materialized entirely in 2021, but absolutely are going to be there for 2022.
CF: Are there going to be any announcements during CPX 360 in terms of new programs, initiatives, solutions or opportunities for partners?
FR: This year is going to be a little bit more iterative than kind of rip-and-replace. You’re going to see a maturation of our cloud program, working closely with partners, with the marketplaces, and with Microsoft, AWS and Google. You’re going to see a newly launched MSSP program. We’re going to take the best of all worlds. We’re going to take the great program that Avanan has and the simplicity of the program that Avanan brought over through our acquisition. We’re going to add a lot of the great things we’re doing on a larger scale with the GSIs, with the telcos, etc. We’re going to continue to open up the margin aperture for partners. We’re going to offer a professional services certification program like we did last year, but we’re going to be able to broaden those offerings. When you start to add managed services and you start to be able to do professional services, you’re starting to look at a margin that might be six or seven times larger than the product margin.
We’re going to continue to announce new marketing campaigns. We’re going to try to address the cost of sales and the cost of customer acquisition. And we will also be increasing our development fund budget as well year over year.
We have put together partner success and partner onboarding teams because, again, we’re seeing the number of partners come over to Check Point and we want to make sure that experience really is the best experience they can get. Many of them are coming from the Azure partners, the AWS partners or Google partners for that matter, as well as some of our IoT partners. We’ve improved training and certification. Not only is the training better, but when you look at it against our two major competitors, we are asking for less money and [fewer] hours out of the field, and we are getting really high marks. And then, as as the year progresses, we’re going to be looking at different partner categories, partner specializations, badges, benefits, etc.
CF: What’s the latest in terms of partner feedback and what do they want from Check Point in 2022?
FR: What Check Point partners want is what they’ve always wanted, but it’s been exacerbated a little bit by our competitors’ behavior. They want predictability. They want fair margins. They want good field alignment. They want excellence in business planning. And they want a tool set that allows them to be able to serve customers, but also to be able to lower the cost of sales and increase win rates.
You can dress these partner programs up any way you want. And I think it’s dangerous because you get more enamored with the PowerPoint rather than the reality. What we’re focused on is the reality right now. And that’s just predictable profitability, solid deal registration, lower cost of sales with enhanced whitespace, and our channel marketing and funding. And, of course, the best technology that our partners and our customers can trust and stand behind. I don’t want to oversimplify it, but I think it’s getting back to a time when … simplicity was valued more than complicated programs. I think we’re getting back there.
CF: Does Check Point have specific goals for 2022? If so, what role do partners play in achieving those goals?
FR: Basically, we want to we want to be able to expand the market. So we want to continue to pursue new customers, and new customer acquisition is going to be led by the partners. There’s no doubt about it. We also want to create more of a global partner network. As our GSIs, telco partners and even some of the partners that I have known for years start to acquire subsidiaries overseas in different theaters, we want to be able to serve the customer globally.
We want to create the best experience for our customers and our partners. Therefore, anything the partners can do to make money and create value-driving customer success, whether that’s pre-sales, doing the assessment, getting the right recommendation or deploying that technology and accelerating that time to value on their part, they’re part of our goals and they’re part of the partners’ goals, too. And finally, we want to grow. We want to grow in our emerging technologies. We want to continue to have growth in cloud security, in Harmony, which is our securing the remote workforce, and we want to be able to be the best in network security.
Also during CPX 360, Check Point handed out its latest partner awards.
The following partners received awards:
Top Distributor: TD Synnex
Top Quantum Partner: Eversec Group
Top Cloud Partner: Guidepoint Security
Top Harmony Partner: SHI
Top Infinity Partner: Gotham Technology
Top GSI Partner: IBM
Top Partner: Insight
Top LATAM Partner: Arteria Communications
Top Canadian Partner: GoSecure
Also during CPX 360, Check Point handed out its latest partner awards.
The following partners received awards:
Top Distributor: TD Synnex
Top Quantum Partner: Eversec Group
Top Cloud Partner: Guidepoint Security
Top Harmony Partner: SHI
Top Infinity Partner: Gotham Technology
Top GSI Partner: IBM
Top Partner: Insight
Top LATAM Partner: Arteria Communications
Top Canadian Partner: GoSecure
Check Point Software Technologies‘ CPX 360 2022 Americas summit kicked off Tuesday with the unveiling of the company’s new logo. This is the first major logo change in over 25 years.
Tuesday’s virtual event was for Check Point partners and employees. The full CPX 360 event kicks off Wednesday with a keynote by Gil Shwed, Check Point’s founder and CEO.
Frank Rauch is Check Point’s head of worldwide channel sales. He said the theme of this year’s CPX 360 is “you deserve the best security.”
New Check Point logo
“When we say ‘you,’ I think that means a number of different things,” he said. “One, obviously, it’s intended for customers, but the other thing it really means is our partners. And obviously, when you’re talking about the best security, the intuitive answer becomes the best technology. But realistically, it’s the best channel program. It’s the best channel coverage. It’s the best channel investment and the best channel profitability.”
Also this week, Check Point will announce its latest technology updates and innovations. Earlier this month, it announced it has extended the Check Point Quantum portfolio with Quantum Lightspeed Firewalls. Check Point said the firewalls deliver 10 times lower latency and five times faster security throughput, while also delivering 20 times better price-performance than competing solutions.
Scroll through our slideshow above for a Q&A with Rauch and more on CPX 360.
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