The Gately Report: Proofpoint Partners Help Fuel Growth Amid Economic Uncertainty

Proofpoint partners are playing a big role in the enterprise security company’s continued growth despite ongoing economic uncertainty.

That’s according to Joe Sykora, Proofpoint’s senior vice president of worldwide channels and partner sales. He pointed out that many companies that do business in the channel have announced layoffs since the start of the year, but not Proofpoint.

Proofpoint’s Joe Sykora

“We continue to invest, we continue to maintain, and I think that’s important for our partners,” he said. “I will tell you, pipelines are stronger than ever with us, and talking to partners, their pipelines are very strong as well.”

No one knows how long economic uncertainty will last, but Proofpoint and its partners are staying strong, Sykora said. That said, they are fortunate to be in an industry that’s not a “nice to have.”

Proofpoint Partners ‘Need to Be Very Active’

“Some people say it’s going to take to the rest of the year,” he said. “If you follow the stock market, obviously it’s been pretty powerful the last couple of weeks. We’ve seen some gains, especially in the technology sector. And I think for our partners … you need to be very active. This is when you can separate yourself as a true partner versus a reseller. A true partner is someone who’s always checking in and still providing service to your customers, and finding out what do they need and how you can help.”

Proofpoint‘s partner growth is significant, Sykora said.

“If you look at partner contribution, which is deals that partners are bringing to us, that is up almost 20% over last year,” he said. “So we’re seeing a pretty significant increase in deals that are brought to us by partners. And that’s a testament to the changes that we’ve made over the last few years. It also goes into the fact that we’ve brought in a lot of new channel talent globally as well, a lot of channel account managers that have great relationships and really understand that. Partners are one of the major highlights of our success and I can attribute a lot of our success that we’ve had this year to our partners. So and things are going well.”

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