The Gately Report: Special Palo Alto Networks Ignite 2022 Edition with Karl Soderlund
Close to 60% of Palo Alto Networks' business is generated in North America.
![Palo Alto Ignite Day 2 2022 Palo Alto Ignite Day 2 2022](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt59e8b9ece94f11af/65240d18e462c7916c892c40/Palo-Alto-Ignite-Day-2-2022.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Channel Futures: What are your top priorities in this new North America ecosystems role?
Palo Alto Networks’ Karl Soderlund: I think there are two or three things that are on the top of my to-do list. One is to ensure that our partners are taking full advantage of the programs and the opportunities that we have in place. We have a lot of initiatives and incentives where they can increase their profitability with Palo Alto Networks. So I’ll call it an awareness campaign to ensure they’re aware of those capabilities. So that’s No. 1.
No. 2 is to ensure that the organizational structure is in place to support those partners. If we think about the North American market specifically, there are [more than] 5,000 active partners. Do we have the infrastructure to support them in a way that they want to invest more with Palo Alto Networks and drive more success? So that’s my second priority.
And the third priority is to ensure that I’m always forward-looking and listening to our partner community about what changes and enhancements we need to make in the program and making those changes.
CF: What sort of feedback have you received from partners about your new role?
KS: During my keynote, I stressed that the changes that we’re announcing are a representation of all of them, their feedback. So I’ve been around organizations or seen organizations in the past that think they should dictate to the partners what they need. We have a belief to listen first, which has been a philosophy of ours for a long time, and then make the changes based on the feedback that we get from our partners.
For example, we announced yesterday within our managed services organization, our MSSP organization, that we’re going to have a partner-to-partner initiative. What that means is all managed services partners are not created equal. In some cases, they may need to leverage each other for support, and they may. An example is maybe my security operations center (SOC) isn’t as strong as it needs to be, but we can work together to solve an end user’s problem. Historically, they’ve always had a workaround to do this. Now we’ve actually programized it where they’re both recognized as adding value. We enhance and train them to work together. We’re making those connections all with the premise to solve and help the end user. So that’s an example of listening to what the partners have asked for and putting something into action.
Another example is we have a subset of partners that do not want to transact Palo Alto Networks, but they want to provide the services. So part of our new framework is a services-only path. So now you can be Palo Alto Networks partner, but not forced to transact or resell the technology. You can work and engage with our sales force. You can provide the services. So we’re really listening to our partners to align with them based on their needs. And that’s probably another good example that we can drive through.
CF: Do any of the new partner program enhancements represent a first or new direction for Palo Alto Networks when it comes to working with partners?
KS: The services path is definitely a new one. I think the other side of it is, I’ll call it an enhancement versus new, but we really put focus around putting a program for our distributors, and how they can drive and increase their profitability, and we can work with them closely. If we look at the North American business, 90% of our business goes through two-tier distribution, meaning that our distributors are involved in 90% of our deals. So we are enabling and training them to support our partner base as an extended member of the Palo Alto team. So I think there’s extra focus and vision there that we’ve enhanced.
Also, there’s our cloud service providers (CSPs). We’ve announced a program for our partners to deal register CSP opportunities, which is a first. The driver behind that is so they can be recognized as the partner of record that we’re working with, and they can also be working in enhancing their relationship with the CSPs closely. The problem that we’re solving for is our partners felt like there is potentially a gap or a misunderstanding on how to work with CSPs, and we’re helping bridge that gap.
CF: More enhancements are coming as part of the “rolling thunder” that you announced during the partner summit. How is that going to work?
KS: If you think about it, there are two ways to roll out a program. You can either wait until everything is completely polished and buttoned up, and have a big reveal, or you can consistently look and make improvements along the way. We took the choice of making improvements along the way, and the driver was twofold. One, we can act fast and be agile. And two, we can continue to listen to our partners and make changes that are needed. So my commitment and Palo Alto‘s commitment to our partner community is that we will listen, and we will act rapidly and we will be agile. So we may become a multibillion-dollar company and in some cases close to a $1 billion partner for some of our partners, but we’ll be the most agile, flexible partner that they have. And if they invest and they execute, we will be the most profitable partner that they have.
CF: SASE and zero trust are two big themes here at Ignite. Can you talk a little bit about how partners can make the most of those opportunities and how Palo Alto Networks can help them with that?
KS: From a marketplace, SASE and zero trust have become boardroom-level conversations. So a lot of our partners, as they’re evolving their position within the customer, they need to elevate the conversations that they’re having. Zero trust right now is a conversation that every CIO and CISO is having about how they enhance the protection of their environment. So if our partner community wants to become a more valued partner to their end user, if we can train and enable them to have this discussion with confidence, they’re going to have a greater attach rate to that customer. They’ll be able to sell more services and they’ll be able to sell more overall with Palo Alto Networks.
For both SASE and zero trust, we’re in the early days, and the future and the growth is in front of us. So now is the time to train, enable and ensure our partners can deliver and understand the story with confidence, and wrap services around it. Palo Alto services that our partners deliver drive four times to five times the margin than a traditional resale transaction. So when we start looking at a blended margin or blended profitability, it really increases dramatically when they add services. So I think that would be the opportunity.
CF: Palo Alto Networks just released its 2022 Global What’s Next in Cyber Survey. It found, for example, 96% of security executives polled reported experiencing a cyber incident in the last 12 months. Is there a message for partners in this research?
KS: I think a couple of the most interesting findings that I’ve seen is that an average breach is costing an end user $2.4 million and taking 37 days to remediate. What we’re trying to do is, by working closely with Palo Alto Networks and our partner community, you can prevent having that occur. We can prevent those breaches. We can prevent their inefficiencies, why they’re trying to remediate after a breach. And I think a lot of what you’re going to see is that the attack surface is increasing. The bad guys are very well funded. And having a close relationship with a company like Palo Alto Networks is really important. And what we’re asking our partners to do is to have an opinion. There are too many disparate security technologies that add complexity to the market. We want them to have an opinion and align with Palo Alto Networks from a platform standpoint to drive the best security and the best protection for our joint end user community.
CF: What can partners look forward to from Palo Alto Networks in the year ahead?
KS: We are always going to listen first and act second. We’re going to listen to what their needs are, and then we’re going to act and make changes based on what our joint customers need and how we can support them best. So the good news is you’ll always see innovations in our program, but the innovations are going to be driven by need and based on logic, and not just be reactionary. So what we’re blessed with here at Palo Alto Networks is our senior leadership team on the channel and ecosystem, all have five-plus years tenure. So we have a level of consistency in leadership, which really allows us to follow through on our execution and what our philosophy is here. But then in the same sense, we always challenge ourselves, and there’s no harsher critic for what we’re doing than ourselves to make sure that we’re supporting our partners in the best possible way.
CF: What are you hoping partners can take from here and immediately make use of when they get back home from Ignite?
KS: We had a couple of calls to action on Monday, one of which is for the partners to work with their local teams and make sure they understand all of the incentives that are available for them. And I use the analogy of a salesperson understanding their compensation plan. If you want to maximize your earning, you need to understand your compensation plan. So take that as a walkaway. The second walkaway is to understand the future direction of where we’re going with the program and look beyond just the firewall. Look at our next-gen security and the opportunities they sell. They can go into their broad install base and sell more than the firewall. They can sell Cortex, they can sell Prisma cloud, they can wrap services around all of this. So the opportunity for expansion is tremendous for them right now.
Palo Alto Networks has undergone rapid transformation over the past four-plus years, and acquisitions helped it reach many of its milestones, said Nikesh Arora, CEO and chairman.
“Four-and-a-half years ago, we were firewall with one product and one category,” he said. “Three-and-a-half years ago, we had the early signs of SASE and the early signs of Prisma Cloud, and the early signs of XDR. Two-and-a-half years ago, we had XDR in the market, we had SASE with not that many large customers and with a bunch of functionality that wasn’t there, and we had the early beginnings of cloud security posture management (CSPM) and cloud workload protection (CWP). And a year-and-a-half ago, we started competing with SASE at scale against Zscaler, we started providing more capability on our cloud platform and convincing customers that cloud security is important, and we added a few more subscriptions to our firewalls.”
Palo Alto Networks needed to build a lot of capability in the company and “we couldn’t wait seven years,” Arora said.
“We didn’t have seven years to build a product portfolio so we decided we’re going to buy companies to figure this out because we could do it,” he said. “One type of company was clean in a new category we didn’t have anything in. So things like Demisto. We didn’t have an automation product. Forty percent of our companies were net-new capabilities that didn’t require integration. Sixty percent required integration. There, we only buy No. 1 or No. 2 in an industry.”
Palo Alto Networks has spent about $4 billion acquiring 17 companies during Arora’s tenure.
“In the case of cloud security, we are acquiring because we can stack it next to it and integrate it,” he said. “In the case of network, we think we have a lot of the capabilities … so we’ve to be more careful. That’s why you’ve seen our pace slow down, because we have a lot of capabilities. I think we’re pretty good from a capability perspective. In terms of future M&A guidance, what will drive it is … a unique capability that we believe is important to solve a customer’s problem and we were late by not building it, which means we need that capability now. Outside of that, we have no other aspirations.”
Also during Ignite 2022, cybersecurity leaders with Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42 and AT&T Cybersecurity highlighted the need for more women and diversity in cybersecurity, and things that can be done to foster more diversity.
Jas Sood, Palo Alto Networks’ senior vice president of sales, U.S. enterprise, moderated the session. Lindsay Preuci, AT&T Cybersecurity‘s AVP of managed security services for network operations, and Wendi Whitmore, senior vice president of Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42‘s threat intelligence team, were the panelists.
Women make up only 25% of the professional cybersecurity workforce, Preuci said.
“Diversity needs to be at the forefront of how you’re thinking about recruiting,” she said.
Job openings need to be posted on a variety of different forums to encourage interest from the widest scope of applicants as possible, Preuci said.
“I say hire for attitude, train for skill,” she said.
Retention is just as important as recruiting, Preuci said. It’s important to ensure flexibility for team members throughout their life cycle.
Whitmore said the industry needs individuals with a variety of different backgrounds, for example in terms of language and geopolitical affiliation, because solving cybersecurity challenges requires people looking at it from differing perspectives.
Outsmarting attackers requires outmaneuvering them, and that requires the “out-of-the-box” thinking that comes from diversity, she said.
Also during Ignite, Palo Alto Networks announced an expanded partnership that brings together its Prisma Access and BeyondCorp Enterprise from Google Cloud to provide hybrid users secure access to applications, SaaS, cloud or on-premises, from managed or unmanaged devices.
Built on the backbone of the Google Cloud network, this cloud-delivered zero trust network access (ZTNA) 2.0 solution enables all users to work securely from anywhere regardless of device type. With Prisma Access, customers get ZTNA 2.0 security for all devices, branch offices and applications. BeyondCorp Enterprise Essentials enables secure access to applications and resources for unmanaged devices. Combined threat intelligence and machine learning (ML) automatically detects and remediates threats to users, applications or enterprise data, all powered by the performance, planetary reach and low-latency connections of Google Cloud.
Sunil Potti is vice president/general manager of cloud security at Google Cloud.
“Together with Prisma Access and BeyondCorp, customers will now have seamless access to a zero trust security solution built for today’s workforce, powered by Google Cloud’s innovation, scale and trusted cloud infrastructure,” he said “At Google Cloud, we continue to deliver opinionated solutions with our customers’ needs in mind, bringing together innovations from across Google and its ecosystem of partners in easy-to-consume offerings that are backed by Google’s unique scale and deep experience.”
Also during Ignite, Palo Alto Networks announced an expanded partnership that brings together its Prisma Access and BeyondCorp Enterprise from Google Cloud to provide hybrid users secure access to applications, SaaS, cloud or on-premises, from managed or unmanaged devices.
Built on the backbone of the Google Cloud network, this cloud-delivered zero trust network access (ZTNA) 2.0 solution enables all users to work securely from anywhere regardless of device type. With Prisma Access, customers get ZTNA 2.0 security for all devices, branch offices and applications. BeyondCorp Enterprise Essentials enables secure access to applications and resources for unmanaged devices. Combined threat intelligence and machine learning (ML) automatically detects and remediates threats to users, applications or enterprise data, all powered by the performance, planetary reach and low-latency connections of Google Cloud.
Sunil Potti is vice president/general manager of cloud security at Google Cloud.
“Together with Prisma Access and BeyondCorp, customers will now have seamless access to a zero trust security solution built for today’s workforce, powered by Google Cloud’s innovation, scale and trusted cloud infrastructure,” he said “At Google Cloud, we continue to deliver opinionated solutions with our customers’ needs in mind, bringing together innovations from across Google and its ecosystem of partners in easy-to-consume offerings that are backed by Google’s unique scale and deep experience.”
PALO ALTO NETWORKS IGNITE — Palo Alto Networks‘ Karl Soderlund has three top priorities in his new role as senior vice president of North America ecosystems. He announced his new position during this week’s Ignite 2022.
We featured Soderlund in our inaugural Gately Report last January. So it’s only fitting to close out the year with him on his new job. He addressed his new role and new NextWave partner program enhancements during this week’s Palo Alto Networks Ignite 2022 conference.
Close to 60% of Palo Alto Networks’ business is generated in North America, Soderlund said.
Total Addressable Market Growing at Rapid Rate
“Right now, if we look at our joint customer base that we sell to with our partners and the total addressable market, it’s growing at a rapid rate,” Soderlund said. “And customers today need help. And what I mean by that is there is an IT shortage for headcount. There are a lot of disparate security solutions that are embedded in their environments, which leads to complexity. And they need proven experts to come in and help them solve their problems and ensure their security posture is strong and they’re protected. Why I’m saying that is we believe that our partner community delivers that expertise. So what we do as the manufacturer is ensure they are enabled and trained, and have the skill set to understand our joint customers’ environments and how to best secure them. So that’s the opportunity.”
In the past, a partner community may have been more transactional, Soderlund said.
“Today they are a valued consultant in everything from pre-sales design of what the environment should look like through implementation, through full-blown managed services,” he said. “So it’s really life cycle management. And customers are desperate for the help today, and that’s not more or less of a North American statement. That’s more of a global statement right now that we’re seeing in our environment and our industry.”
See our slideshow above for more from Soderlund and more from Ignite 2022.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Edward Gately or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like