Security discussion
CompTIA: Make New Processes Part of the ‘Security Mix’
Risk analysis, compliance management and cloud provider evaluation must be “part of the security mix,” CompTIA said. Customer education also needs attention.
Big Sellers in Security
38% of respondents said firewalls are their biggest seller, while 20% rank antivirus at the top of their list. Only 9% report that security information and event management (SIEM) solutions are their biggest revenue producer.
Reliance on Vendor Reputation
Only 1 in 10 channel partners rely primarily on the strength of their own services or innovation when making a sale, and instead depend on the strength of vendor products.
Balancing Act
About one-third of all channel companies balance vendor reputation and value-added services in their messaging.
Security Product Offerings
Product offerings include standard firewall (69%), email antivirus (68%), server antivirus (66%), disk/file encryption (63%) and desktop antivirus (63%).
Security Service Offerings
Top security services include risk management (67%), backup/BCDR (business continuity and disaster recovery) (62%), mobile security (61%), compliance management (61%), corporate policy help (61%) and security education (61%).
Security Skills Gaps
42% of businesses cited some level of skill gaps; 4% believe major gaps exist today.
Adding Talent
42% of businesses with skills gaps have hired new talent recently. Others have partnered with other channel firms (57%) and employed training (68%).
Training and Partnering
At large companies, training and partnering (both tied at 52%) rank as the number one way to close the skills gap. Midsize (67%) and small companies (85%) rely on training to build skills.
Open Dialogue
Channel companies initiate security discussions 51% of the time, with talking points such as a change in IT operations (64%), new knowledge (59%), news of a major breach (54%), new threats (46%), breach within peers (43%) and cost of breaches (26%).
Stakeholder Engagement
62% of respondents said IT is involved in security discussions, followed by the involvement of the CEO (51%), finance (29%), sales (27%) and marketing (22%).