Russian security software vendor Kaspersky Lab is making a push to expand its Canadian presence.
Jim Sullivan, the director of channel sales for Kaspersky North America, told CDN that approximately 85 per cent of its business resides in the U.S. market. However, the company sees the Canadian market as having huge potential. The plan is to expand into the Canadian market exclusively through channel partners. And that means an increased push to recruit more solution providers for Kaspersky.
“We want to recruit new partners but we also want to reach our goal through existing partners like Hypertec and LongView Systems. But yes, we are very much in requirement mode,” Sullivan said.
Kaspersky is looking to increase its Canadian business by 30 per cent in the number of transaction partners within the next six to 18 months, Sullivan added.
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It was only a few years ago when Kaspersky shifted gears to make a concerted effort to enter the enterprise market.
Kaspersky’s plan was to rely less on the more fickle retail market and hunt for more corporate customers because they are less likely to switch away from their incumbent vendor. Kaspersky would go about accomplishing this move through channel partners.
Sullivan called the strategy very successful. “We did look at that strategy very closely. We needed to get into the enterprise and there were a few challenges such as maximizing operational efficiencies, securing a mobile workforce and protecting corporate data,” he said.
Sullivan also runs a channel partner advisory council at the company. He told CDN that the partner advisory council is an important part of the security vendor’s overall strategy. Kaspersky’s partner advisory council is made up of a cross-section of solution providers from resellers, small business partners, enterprise players, solution providers that sell into the commercial space, service providers and public sector VARs.
“First thing is people that we ask to take part in the council sign an NDA because we share information and some of that is competitive and sensitive. We ask them for their feedback on ideas such as sales incentives and marketing programs. This feedback is a big part of our road map and I think it gives us a real competitive advantage,” he said.
Kaspersky conducts partner advisory council meetings twice a quarter and they host the partners once a year at the annual partner conference.
The partner advisory council puts a real premium on the partner experience. “This partner experience is optimized with less formal structure and we appeal to partners to be invested and they can be extremely productive with this approach” he said.