Secureworks is fostering ties with a small group of “super-important” partners as it rolls its partner-first strategy to Europe.
The Dell majority-owned cybersecurity vendor announced last November that all new sales of its flagship Taegis XDR platform would from the following month be sold with partners in North America. In the quarter directly before the strategy debuted, around 75% of new Taegis business was conducted in conjunction with partners.
From today, the strategy is being rolled to the UK and Europe.
All new business sales in region, both for Taegis and Secureworks’ incident response and other consulting services, will now be transacted via partners, Secureworks Regional Director Simon Godfrey confirmed.
‘Super-important partners’
Secureworks is throwing its weight behind a small number of partners “where we are super important to them, and they are super important to us,” Godfrey (pictured top) told IT Channel Oxygen.
This includes Bytes and Saepio in the UK.
“All new-logo new business will be collaborated, worked with, aligned with, and then facilitated through the channel partners going forward,” Godfrey confirmed.
“It’s important to emphasise that we aren’t casting the net and looking to sign up hundreds of partners that we don’t have the ability to work closely with.
“They won’t find themselves competing with other partners for the same business that has a Secureworks name on it, which I think is quite a big differentiator. We have been very cautious but selective and have done a lot of due diligence to make sure it’s strategic for both parties.”
Dell, which owns over 80% of Secureworks despite it being listed on NASDAQ, is another major channel for the company, Godfrey said.
‘We’re completing our transition to a SaaS business’
Although Secureworks’ total revenues fell from $535m to $464m in its fiscal 2023 (reflecting a reduction in non-strategic service offerings), Taegis revenue more than doubled to $188.1m.
The 2,000-employee company competes and partners in equal measure with endpoint protection vendors likes of Microsoft, SentinelOne and Crowdstrike, he explained.
“If someone wants more than just the endpoint solutions, that’s where we can sit as an umbrella, ingesting that in at a telemetry level and then collating that with other information across the infrastructure,” Godfrey said, singling out Rapid7 as being among Secureworks’ closest competitors.
Secureworks earlier this month announced it is cutting 15% of its workforce (following a 9% headcount reduction announced in February).
The cuts shouldn’t be seen in the same light as vendors who are downsizing while moving more business to the channel (including Rapid7 and Dell), Godfrey said, however.
“It’s about the timings for where we’re at as a business,” he explained.
“Historically we operated as a traditional MSSP. We are completing our transition to a SaaS business and as a result we are simplifying structures and processes and systems to be aligned with how a SaaS company needs to operate.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
