SonicWall Updates Managed Security Services Program

SonicWall on Monday unveiled an enhanced version of its SecureFirst Managed Security Services Program to help MSSPs better address financial and customer issues.

The enhanced three-tiered MSSP program offers benefits such as flexible pricing options, tailored technical support, and access to MSSP field sales and technical specialists. It also offers increased access to co-marketing funds, as well as specialization training and assessments for sales and technical staff.

HoJin Kim, SonicWall‘s vice president of global channel sales, tells us MSSPs on his company’s partner advisory council provided input to make sure the program fits their needs.

SonicWall’s HoJin Kim

“In addition to our council members, we’ve been in beta with some elements of the program for the past few months, and we’ve been getting active feedback from those participants,” he said. “We’ve also been previewing the program with some selected partners, some of whom do business with SonicWall already, and some who don’t, and we’ve been receiving positive feedback from them. Lastly, when we decided to enhance our program, we contracted with a research firm to make sure that we are hitting on elements that MSSPs, in general, state are most important to them.”

SonicWall put more structure into the managed security services program to be a “much more predictable” vendor for MSSPs, Kim said. Flexible pricing models also put less strain on working capital for MSSPs.

In addition, priority access to technical support will lower their customer service cost and increase customer satisfaction, he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of MSSPs help get their customers working remotely very quickly, so we’ve been trying to help them with offerings from our remote-access product portfolio,” Kim said. “We also see that many MSSPs are having to manage cash flow tightly, given the economic uncertainty. As a result, many of their customers experiencing disruption in their business. We’ve got the product portfolio to help make sure MSSP customers are staying operational securely — be it with remote access solutions, endpoint security solutions and/or cloud applications.”

Participating MSSPs are required to meet annual revenue requirements, and have an operating network operations center (NOC) or security operations center (SOC) with help-desk support capabilities, as well as sales and technical staffing criteria. Authorized MSSPs must be in the SecureFirst program at silver or above.

“The explosion of exposure points has not only increased the attack surface area of organizations, it has also taxed IT departments that increasingly call upon MSSPs to help mitigate the rapidly growing threat volume,” said Luca Taglioretti, SonicWall’s vice president of global MSSP and carrier sales. “We’re combining our 28 years of experience, data and technology with our partner-led culture, to deliver the next round of enhancement to our MSSP program. We want to give participating partners, both regionally and globally, a competitive edge.”