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Who joined us in Vegas this March? And what did they think? Access the post-show report >>
Craig Galbraith: All right, hey again, everyone, Channel Futures editorial director Craig Galbraith here. Super excited for the upcoming Channel Partners Conference and Expo and MSP Summit March 11th through the 14th in Las Vegas.”
“Excited today to talk with Steve Garrison. Steve is Senior Vice President of Marketing with Stellar Cyber, a sponsor and exhibitor of the MSP portion of the event. Steve, how are you?”
Steve Garrison: “I'm fantastic, Craig, and this is our third year in a row. So we really believe in this format and this program. So thanks for hosting it.”
Craig: “Fantastic. We appreciate your support for sure. So Steve, let's talk a little bit about Steller Cyber. What's the security specialty for you guys? And how do you differentiate yourselves from the competition?”
Steve: “Well, it's a bit of a pyramid just to get the nomenclature right, Craig. So number one, we're in the security operations platform space. We sell cybersecurity software to help providers sell services through a platform.”
“And users in the enterprise also use this as a SecOps platform. Go down one layer, we do automated threat detection and response. We have machine learning and Gen AI technology in the platform. So lean teams can succeed. Providers get more margin because they're not chasing data and alerts. They're actually being proactive and giving better outcomes to their customers.”
“And we're proud to say we have over 1,000 customers, and we power 53 of the top 250 MSSPs globally. So we think we're on a roll. We'd love to talk to more people at the event, Craig.”
Craig: “That is terrific, we look forward to that. So you started to get into a little bit, but maybe who is the ideal partner that you're going to be trying to connect with at the event?”
Steve: “Well, there's a couple of ideal partners. One is maybe frustrated with their existing platform, either it's too hard to use or they feel they don't have enough service differentiation or they're looking for new revenue streams. And so typically we replace a next gen SIM or a legacy SIM with what we call an open, extended and detection response platform. XDR is a new buzzword out there from Gartner and Open XDR is our take on that – we can come back to that later perhaps.”
“And then the second type of partner is someone who's in the professional services business or they have cloud services and they're learning and thinking about getting into cybersecurity.”
“And we have quite a few customers who are actually Greenfield who jump in and buy our platform to get started. Both are successful in our case because we believe in enablement and we enrich the whole onboarding and growth process with not only my team to help build leads and branding with them, but our whole process of customer success actually starts at our proof of concept during the trial.”
Craig: “Plenty of good opportunities, Steve. So you kind of set me up for my next question. That's Interstellar, your first partner program that you launched for resellers and distributors here roughly a year ago, I think.”
“Could you maybe offer some highlights of that program and anything new that our audience should be aware of?”
Steve: “Well, first of all, thanks for noticing. It was a very successful launch and it was a cool name building up off our Stellar Cyber branding. And we had a lot of fun with that as you try to with channel programs.”
“But the program really has three components that are really differentiating. One, it's the base level that a lot of people have, lead generation, deal, reg deals, partner portal, an academy to help you get trained and certified.”
“The second part of the program is the idea of that. I mentioned that already, enablement, right? We don't believe in a transactional sale. I hate to say the word partnership here, but we really mean it. And the only way to find out is to talk to our customers and meet us at the stand, because to us, partnership is a journey. It's not a destination. Selling security technology is not a destination. It's a journey and it's hard out there. So we really believe in actually picking up the phone, Craig, and working with people and making sure that when there's issues or challenges, we resolve them quickly. And when we're having a great time, we work together.”
“The third part of the program is our ecosystem. Our whole value is to let you as a customer, say yes. And what I mean by that is a lot of customers on the enterprise side have a lot of investments already. And they're tired of vendors coming in and saying, ‘throw it all away, let me start all over again’. That's not the way we roll. We don't want our partners to roll that way. So our platform, when I say open XDR, we have a foundational API and machine learning technology that lets us bring in anybody's data, any new data source.”
“If the customer has a new tool, we make it happen. We integrate it. And so the whole idea of our MSSP partners is, you get to say yes. ‘Can I embed that data?’ Yes. ‘How about this data?’ Yes. So we make it really simple”.
“We want you to grow. We want you to have fun. And we want you to be successful in this very complex market. And we recognise that a lot of investments can’t just be thrown out there, they’ve got to be maximized. So that’s the third part of the programme.”
Craig: “Yes is always such a good approach, Steve. So let’s talk a bit about the event. What’s maybe the overarching message for the prospective partners you meet with at Channel Partners?”
Steve: “Well come by and meet our team and challenge anything you think I said that sounds too much like marketing ware. And come by and meet Jeff, Dan and Tim; they go to all their shows as a threesome.”
“Also, Craig, we're different. We have a speaking slot, but guess what? We got one of our customers up there on the panel. Joe Marin, the CEO and founder of Cyfler. They're a top 20 MSSP. And, this is how we roll. We don't talk. We have our customers talk because Joe will talk about how OpenXDR allows him to see. He’s got five years of history with us. And he'll talk about how Stellar Cyber rolls with the punches and through thick and thin. So come and see Joe speak. You'll get a good taste for what it's like to work with us. And I don't need to say any more.”
Craig: “Fantastic, Steve. You put it very well. Appreciate Stellar Cyber's support of our events. And we'll see you real soon. We'll see everybody in Las Vegas. This is going to be a good one.”
Get your tickets for our March event to meet Stellar Cyber’s team and learn more about how you can work with them.