Dive Brief:
- Optiv Security launched a digital product and sales enablement portal for vendors, tapping a partnership with Channelscaler to build it, the companies told Channel Dive Tuesday.
- It is the largest reseller-focused project to date for Channelscaler, which typically builds channel management software for vendors rather than partners.
- “It's common on the vendor side to have a partner portal where you have your training and certifications and enablement,” Hunter Haverty, Optiv senior director, partner programs and operations, distribution, told Channel Dive. “We wanted to flip that on the reseller side and attack a few specific use cases by having our own partner portal for engagement with our top partners.”
Dive Insight:
The portal reflects the shifting relationship between OEMs and partners. The top resellers have swelled in size, wielding increased leverage with their vendors. Moreover, many of them are transacting with a growing base of vendors, particularly in the fragmented cybersecurity market.
Optiv reached $3.7 billion in sales in 2024, the most recent year for which it provided documentation. In its most recent fiscal year, the company transacted with approximately 800 suppliers, up about 40% from the prior year and has more than 450 technology partners.
“It speaks to the breadth of all the new security technology that's coming out,” Haverty said. “If you go to RSA, there's a thousand new ones a month, so we're consuming a lot.”
Optiv rolled out a partner program in February to manage its vendors. The firm intends to measure OEMs just as they measure partners, ranking them in tiers and doling out proportional benefits and requirements.
“We expect deal reg best practices. We expect a partner program that is easy to consume. We expect balanced trade on teaming deals versus deal registration and hunting,” Haverty said.
Optiv previously stored vendor information in a Sharepoint folder. Haverty said the data was difficult to track and became outdated as soon as it entered the folder.
For example, if a vendor introduced a new sales incentive, it would often be briefly discussed internally and then disappear into Sharepoint. Reps can now ask the AI in the portal to help them identify the SPIFFs they qualify for in their customer engagement.
Channelscaler Founder and CTO Kenneth Fox said VAR sales reps often overlook the full scope of available vendor incentives.
“They're a bit overwhelmed and a lot of them get very tied into one vendor because that's what they're used to,” Fox said. “Typically, they will have many choices, but they don't see that.”
The portal will save time for Optiv partner relationship managers, who previously were responsible for uploading vendor collateral into Sharepoint. The new platform allows vendors to upload content. That’s unique for Channelscaler, which typically has a single vendor uploading content for its channel partners. Optiv’s partner relationship managers will be able to focus on accelerating sales rather than operations.
“They're the ones that are always struggling for time,” Fox said. “They have to do all the operational tasks, and we've very much focused on making their lives easier through AI, or giving them a dashboard, so they can understand the performance of each vendor or each reseller, depending on which hat you're wearing.”
