Sophos has launched a new partner program in order to boost growth and deliver new benefits for its partners. It is bringing together existing programs for Sophos and Secureworks partners into a single integrated offering. The company claims it will create new opportunities in an increasingly competitive cybersecurity tools market. It also comes as Sophos completes the integration of Secureworks that is acquired earlier this year.
According to the announcement, this will build on the existing Sophos partner program. It says this is trusted by more than 25,000 partners globally. It doesn’t say how many partners are in the Secureworks network or if that number includes them. Additionally, Partnerbase claims that Sophos has just 149 partners, a long cry from 25,000.
Chris Bell, Senior Vice President of Global Channel, Alliances and Corporate Development, Sophos, said, “The new Sophos Partner Program is designed to reflect the way partners want to build and scale their business today.
“It offers a flexible and profitable path to growth, whether partners are expanding their managed services, launching cybersecurity advisory offerings or scaling existing practices. With this program, we’re doubling down on our commitment to deliver the tools, incentives and support that help our partners lead in a rapidly evolving cybersecurity market.”
What will the new partner program deliver?
According to the Sophos announcement, it will unlock “multiple opportunities for partners to accelerate growth, deliver industry-leading cybersecurity solutions and stand out in an increasingly competitive market.” To back that up, it quotes an article featuring a LinkedIn comment from Jay McBain, Chief Analyst, Canalys.
In that LinkedIn post, McBain, referencing Canalys research, writes, “A week ago we shared the global cybersecurity market projected to grow at 11% in 2025 with channel partners adding $2 of profitable services to every $1 in vendor sales (making $282 billion total).”
Freedom to create unique solutions
This new Sophos Partner Program is designed to give more freedom to partners. It allows them to develop programs and services that align with their skills, business models and sales strategies. It’s an important move. Partners are able to better exploit where they sit in the partner ecosystem, whether MSP, reseller, cyber insurance, or SI.
That freedom will allow them to create a unique offering around the Sophos product line and differentiate themselves from competitors. At the heart of any solution will be the Sophos Central Platform. What is not clear is if this will allow them to white label Sophos products into an own brand solution.
A new growth and sales framework
There is also a growth framework that Sophos claims is built for scale and profitability. It contains the usual program approach of volume discounts and flexible billing. But in addition, there will be “high-value incentives, integrated sales and marketing resources.” Sophos is also promising advanced enablement through Sophos Academy’s new MDR Guided Onboarding and sales quick-start certifications.
Sophos will also work with partners to help develop and retain customers. Part of that includes greater access to its Partner Care, Renewal, and Customer Success teams. There will also be new tools to make it easier to sell and grow a business. That includes an AI Sales Assistant.
Training
Sophos is also promising free certification training for the entire partner community. That will be a big win, especially for smaller partners. The vast majority of partner programs have requirements for certified staff to achieve different levels. That’s partly to see commitment, partly to ensure that partners are able to support customers, and partly to help promote a vendor’s training and certification offering.
What is not clear yet is how many trained and certified employee partners will be needed to achieve each level in the program.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
Partner programs are constantly evolving as vendors seek to solidify their channel. They know that they can no longer create partner lock-in, so they are using benefits to keep the best partners. Interestingly, this announcement shows that Sophos is prepared to go further than before with its partners. Rather than just use them as a sales enablement workforce, it is giving them the tools to go further as a Sophos partner. How that will work out, will take time to see.
There are a few things that need clarifying here. For example, partner numbers. The announcement gives a number of 25,000 partners worldwide. That’s a vast partner network and one that doesn’t appear on the Sophos website or on any site that tracks partner programs. It would have been helpful for the company to define exactly what it means by a partner. It lists MSPs, resellers, cyber insurers and SIs as partners, but 25,000?
What is also unclear is how far it will go with the freedom for partners to build new business solutions. Will everything remain Sophos branded? Will there be a while label option? Just as important, is will it create a marketplace where partners can offer the solutions they create? If so, that will create more opportunities for its partners.
This is a big change by Sophos and one that it hopes will retain and not lose it any Sophos or Secureworks partners. It also marks a significant closing of the Secureworks history. Whether it grows Sophos’ business, that will take time to find out.
