Ilijana Vavan, Chief Sales Officer at VMRay speaks about establishing VMRay’s direct presence and its channel engagement plans for the region.
Now with a direct presence in Dubai, and a distribution tie-up with EliteVAD, what will be the roadmap for VMRay in the Middle East?
Our success in the region will highly depend on our ability to build a strong partner network. Partner engagement initiatives are therefore a top priority on our agenda for 2021. We already have a very attractive channel partner program in place, and with the support of EliteVAD we hope to develop lasting and successful business relationships in the local partner community.
What is VMRay doing to increase the visibility, penetration, and market share in the region?
We are in the fortunate situation to be backed by renowned high-tech investors, and we have successfully closed the series-B funding round in December 2020. This enables us to invest in a strong market entry plan for the region, encompassing a full range of sales, PR, marketing and channel initiatives. We started our outreach program with our participation in GITEX 2020, and we are already benefiting from increasing awareness and interest in our technologies.
Please share the key elements of your channel program.
We have designed a four-tiered partner program, consisting of the levels Consultancy Partner, Fulfillment Partner, Silver Partner and Gold Partner. To offer a structure that accommodates different business models, we created the Consultancy Partner status to attract non-resell partners who specialize in security consulting. Our channel program is geared towards profitability, with elements like deal registration, free-of-charge partner training & certification, co-marketing support, pre-and post-sales support. At VMRay, we are fully committed to the success of the partnership.
Which type of channel partners are a perfect fit for VMRay and why should partners work with you?
As a provider of leading-edge sandboxing technologies, we are looking for partners with extensive experience in SOC and Incident Response. It’s critical that we win partners who understand our unique value proposition and possess the technical expertise to bring our solutions to the market.
What competitive advantage do you offer to your partners?
Our competitive advantage is based on the uniqueness of our technology and our ability to enhance the investments a customer has already made in their existing security stack. We fully appreciate that partners will be looking to add only solutions to their portfolios that “stand out from the crowd”. Allow me to elaborate a bit on our USP’s. The underlying, hypervisor-based core technology of our solutions is industry-leading. We do not only excel in resistance against sandbox evasion, depth of malware analysis and report quality, we also maximize SOC & Incident Response efficiency by massively automating every stage of the detection and analysis process.
Another unique USP is our approach “Don’t rip and replace, augment what you already have invested in”. Instead of displacing existing systems, VMRay increases their efficacy. We mitigate weaknesses, close the gaps, and catch threats that would otherwise be missed. Our strong ecosystem of Technology Partners makes integration in the customer’s existing security environment easy, we offer out-of-the-box connectors to many leading EDR, SOAR, SIEM and threat intelligence solutions. To put it in a nutshell: Our partners will be able to present a value proposition that resonates with customers.
Where do you see yourself stand after a year in the region?
We have every intention of being more than just another vendor in the Middle East cybersecurity market. In 12 months’ time, we mean to be a recognized player in this region, delivering value to the local business community.
What message would you like to give to channel partners?
We are enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead of us and we believe that strong partnerships produce strong results. And, we would invite channel partners from across the region to come and work with us.
