Dive Brief:
- Cybersecurity visibility provider Forescout Technologies named four partners to the top tier of its reseller program amid a major training push, the company announced Wednesday.
- NTT Australia, Hitachi Sunway Information Systems Malaysia, DOR Information Technologies Israel and Computacenter Germany ascended from gold to platinum status in the vendor’s Envision Partner Program. Forescout rates resellers based on sales volume and technical certifications.
- More than 1,300 participants from partner organizations attended Forescout training events this year as the vendor doubled down on its channel investments. “Across our global partner ecosystem, we’re continually raising the bar for technical capability, certifications, customer success and business performance,” Forescout VP of Worldwide Channel Sales David Creed said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
The cybersecurity provider, whose specialties include network access control and zero trust network access, rolled out its field training series in April. The goal was to gamify partner training with practical exercises, a global leaderboard and a Hollywood spy theme called Mission:Possible.
“Rather than traditional product-focused training, we created an immersive, hands-on experience built around real customer challenges and practical business opportunities,” Creed said in an email.
Creed’s team plans to log events in 90 different cities by the end of the year. While the company has historically hosted partner training, the focus of the events has shifted to providing the enablement “locally and at scale,” he said.
Consulting firm Trace3 was among a cohort of three partners that jumped from gold to silver reseller status. Training has been a plus for the company, according to Trace3 Senior Practice Director Milo Sanchez. “Forescout’s enablement, technical investment, and collaborative approach have helped us better support our clients and expand the possibilities of our partnership,” Sanchez said in the release.”
Forescout stated objective is to maintain “ongoing initiatives to strengthen partner expertise and customer success worldwide,” according to Creed. The strategy includes hosting individual planning meetings with partners, letting partners brand Forescout audits of operational technology and IoT networks as their own and putting its own sales development reps to work on behalf of partners.
“Together, these programs help partners build expertise, generate demand and deliver stronger outcomes for customers,” Creed said.
The company aims to have 2,000 partner organization personnel trained by the end of September.
