Cyberoam sees increasing cybercrime and network security as opportunity

This week, Channel Post Editor for Africa – Davis Weddi had an interview with Philip Obondy, Channel Manager – Kenya, Cyberoam. We bring you the excerpts…

What is the status of Cyberoam distribution market in East Africa?

Cyberoam has a comparatively strong presence in the African and Asian markets. We are glad to have a very powerful and dedicated distribution network in entire African region. Specifically for East Africa we have:
– Mart Networks as our distributor for Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
– MKTY as our distributor for Ethiopia
– iMAST as our distributor for Rwanda

Cyberoam held an event recently in Mombasa – Kenya, what was it all about and what is your overall assessment of response from participants of the event?
Cyberoam holds a whole bunch of events for its partners over the year across all regions. The event conducted recently at Mombasa-Kenya was ‘Cyberoam East Africa Partner Summit’. It was attended by more than 60 partners. Please find attached our press release for that event. We also had an award ceremony acknowledging the efforts of our partners. Attached is the complete list of awards that our partners won during the event.

Take us through Cyberoam’s plans for its reseller partners in the region and Kenya in particular?
Cyberoam is a 100 percent channel centric company. We believe our growth lies in the growth of our resellers. Hence we constantly believe in empowering them. We are very strong in Kenya and have resellers of all sizes working with us. Just like most other regions, Cyberoam has many plans for Kenya too, which include partner encouragement campaigns and training programs including CCNSP and more.

Which markets are key for Cyberoam growth in the region and what are the driving factors?
Our solutions work for all sizes of business and we have a series of appliances catering to all kind of organizations. Our solutions also cater to all kind of verticals including Education, Financial, Manufacturing, etc. Although our solutions cater to all kind of verticals, we intend to focus Government and SCADA networks, with our integrated threat protection for ICS/SCADA networks.

Who are Cyberoam’s major partners in the region and what are they offering?

Apart from our distributors, following are few of our major partners of the region.

All of our distributors offer our complete range of Cyberoam products and solutions.

What are the main challenges your channel partners are finding in their market?
Security is a constantly evolving element and awareness among the end customers is still not matured. We work with our partners to increase visibility through our articles, events, exhibitions, roadshows and trainings. We also provide our partner community with all the resources they need like brochures, flyers, mailers, banners, and all the varied kinds of marketing collaterals they might need, through our dedicated partner portal and knowledge base.

What new distribution programmes are you rolling out for the region next year?
We would be working dedicatedly with more number of partners and would empower them through our exclusive trainings like the CCNSP. We also intend to launch year-long partner and incentive programmes, in addition to the regular partner encouragement campaigns.

Which products are receiving a lot of focus this year and why?
Cyberoam offers comprehensive network security for organisations of all sizes and verticals. Hence we intend to focus on our entire range right from a small office appliance to a large enterprise appliance. With newer launches and feature additions planned for the coming year, we intend to make our offerings more industry oriented, enabling more businesses to benefit from our future ready offerings.

What training programmes is Cyberoam rolling out next year Iin the region?
Cyberoam has a dedicate offering namely the Cyberoam academy, which ensures timely and well-structured training certification programme called CCNSP (Cyberoam Certified Network Security Professional) and CCNSE (Cyberoam Certified Network Security Expert). These programs run through the entire year and partners based on the requirement can enrol and participate. We are also making available these courses online. Using which the partners can do it from any-where at their own pace, offering complete flexibility.

How is Cyberoam addressing the issue of fake products, spare parts and grey imports in the region?
As such we haven’t countered the said issues. Also, we ensure sale of our products and solutions only through our authorised resellers and partner community.

Where does Cyberoam see the biggest opportunity for its product offerings coming from next year?
Increase in Cybercrime ratios and growing pressure on compliance, have led to growing awareness for network security among businesses from across the region. We see a lot of opportunity from large enterprises and small offices, alike.

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