Nyssen claimed a major personal coup for him over the past two years has been Sophos’ success in moving into the mid-tier space. “I think we’re gaining ground in our effort to break into the mid-tier space. One of my main roles in the channel is to put some focus into mid-tier partners. We’ve got national partners across Australia, but within each area there are some large resellers who have started to acknowledge us and start to pick up Sophos as a product.
“Of course, as well as picking up the product you have to develop them as a partner as well, and we’ve seen some great growth in that area.”
A significant advantage that Nyssen believes Sophos has once it has recruited a new partner is the depth of support it offers.
“Once they have been recruited we have a fantastic program that trains the resellers in all aspects of the product from pre-sales to post-sales installation and support. This allows them to understand a business’ needs and to provide them with the product set which best suits these requirements,” he said.
Over the next year, Nyssen plans to continue strategies and channel initiatives already in place, while concentrating on making new product launches successful.
“From here, the plan is to first of all focus on getting new technologies into the market. We’ve always got new products coming out, and of the new products we have out there at the moment there’s a large range from endpoint security to email security and Web security,” he said.
“We’re going to be adopting a two-pronged approach which involves firstly educating our existing partners on these new products and getting them up to speed with the offerings that we have, and then further to that is continuing to grow the business itself. There’s a fine balance between growing quickly and maintaining existing partners and having enough time to build new partners as well, so finding and maintaining that balance is certainly the focus.”
And winning the award next year? Nyssen definitely thinks he’s in with a shot. “I absolutely believe I have what is required to be considered again in this category. I pride myself on the relationships I have developed with my partners, the support I provide them and the training I deliver. This is reflected in the success I have had and I will keep on working to better this at all times.”
