Kompingo is now being invited to tender for vendors with established UK teams, Director Toby Caton revealed as he reflected on its first year in business.
The security VAD launched last June before coming out of stealth mode in September. It was among those profiled in Oxygen’s Top 45 ‘Must-Know’ UK IT Distributors.
‘Right place at right time’
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Caton said Kompingo turned over £1m in the first six months of 2023 and had been “in the right place at the right time” when it signed Gytpol as its “lead” vendor upon launch.
“Gytpol has no real competition and fixes a problem that has been around for 15-20 years by highlighting security misconfigurations,” Caton said.
“If you look at the press, more and more stuff is coming out from the likes of Microsoft around security misconfiguration. So we’ve got some big vendors creating a nice message for us, and we’re just going in off the back of that.”
Kompingo counts eSentire, Swimlane, Zimperium, Conceal, Adaptive Shield, Ordr and Gatewatcher among its other vendors.
The VAD will continue hunting for products that fit around the messaging that’s coming out of the likes of Cisco and Microsoft, the latter of which is intent on becoming a dominant cybersecurity player, Caton said.
“Microsoft won’t fix everything and won’t be strong in every area, so we’re trying to pick off the vendors that will sit in and around Microsoft,” he explained.
“That’s probably our mantra going forward, alongside trying to do more for less: can we bring vendors into the market that are a) going to solve a problem but b) possibly save some money as well.”
Lessons learned
Having previously headed up sales for the likes of e92plus and Spinnakar, Caton admitted that the process of onboarding vendors for a distributor of his own had at times proved more protracted than expected.
“I’ve always dealt with these people in my roles at previous distributors and thought I would just walk in and just get something set up,” he said.
The failure of some vendors to make any headway in the UK has also been an “eye opener”, he admitted.
“It’s surprising how much investment some vendors get and yet they don’t seem to be able to close any business in the UK. Just because you sign a vendor, there’s no guarantee it’s going to be successful, even if you do all the right things,” he said.
‘We’re now in the mix’
Has that led Kompingo to modify its approach to evaluating vendors?
“I think we have to be a bit more selective about the vendors we work with now,” Caton replied.
“Our preference is to really work with people we have some trust in or know have done it before.
“The interesting thing is that we’re moving away from taking on products that have absolutely no presence in the UK and are now being invited to tender for products that have a team of people over here already, and might be doing anywhere between £2m and £8m.”
We’re moving away from taking on products that have absolutely no presence in the UK and are now being invited to tender for products that have a team of people over here already, and might be doing anywhere between £2m and £8m
Kompingo will go up against established VADs e92plus, Distology and Kite in two upcoming tenders, Caton said.
“For us in our first year to start competing with those people is quite exciting,” he said.
“We won’t necessarily win all those opportunities but at least we’re in the mix and we’re doing something right. And off the back of maybe not picking up some of those, we’ll learn how we can do things better.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
