Lynne Jeffery (NextGen)
Cyber security giant Palo Alto Networks is partnering with Nextgen for dual distribution in New Zealand alongside incumbent Westcon.
Founded in Australia, Nextgen Distribution has been investing in cybersecurity for three years, an effort it said was being led by a team of ex-Australian military IT security professionals.
Vasely Sapunov, Palo Alto NZ's head of channel and commercial business, said the vendor had been undertaking an exercise to align its partnerships with the growth strategies it was pursuing in New Zealand.
Palo Alto wanted to understand what distribution could look like in the future, he said.
From that exercise, Nextgen was selected as a "next wave" distributor alongside international distributor Westcon.
Palo Alto NZ had previously worked with Arrow, which is still a distribution partner for Palo Alto Networks in various geographies globally including Australia.
"However, our focus is always on our customers in an ever-complex New Zealand landscape," Palo Alto NZ said in a statement.
"When we were looking for a new partner, Nextgen came out on top and perfectly matched where we are for our business today as it continues to grow, especially in New Zealand rapidly."
Nextgen understood that traditional distribution models were changing and had to be adaptable and responsive to market, partner and customer requirements as Palo Alto’s technology portfolio expanded and matured, Sapunov said.
It understood the opportunity ahead, he said, both in the market and in emerging technology and also had a pedigree in cyber security and the cloud.
Finally, NextGen also shared Palo Alto's values around disruption, scale, simplification and execution.
“Palo Alto Networks decided to partner with Nextgen because of its unmatched expertise and understanding of current trends in technology and cybersecurity," Sapunov said
Lynne Jefferey, Nextgen's managing director for New Zealand, said Palo Alto Networks had run an in-depth tender and Nextgen was invited to respond.
Palo Alto's business had grown exponentially over the last few years, she said, while Nextgen's capabilities had also developed to ensure New Zealand customers were on top of current cyber security challenges.
Nextgen invested to create, for instance, a CyberLab technical centre of excellence to provide precise solutions for IT security technology integration.
It also developed "oSpace", a tool for partners which combined data intelligence, lead and demand generation, account-based marketing and sales execution to help vendors and partners drive scalable business opportunities.
Nextgen saw itself as a channel service company, Sapunov said, taking best of breed distribution processes and identifying gaps resellers and customers needed filled from a value added distributor.
"NextGen were challenging, I guess, disrupting traditional distribution models by offering a completely bespoke to vendor go-to-market and support plan," he said
There was also a cultural fit aligning the organisations, with both seeking growth, innovation, agility and the ability to integrate.
Jeffery said Nextgen had worked with other vendors with dual distribution.
Distributors had their own partner bases, sometime with some crossover, she said. Partners would decide who they wanted to work with based on the value each distributor brought to the market.
"We've got a lot of partners that we can bring to Palo Alto that aren't in their partner mix right now," she said.
"We've certainly seen a lot of interest from our partners in growing the managed security services they take to market"
Nextgen was founded in Australia 2011 and arrived in New Zealand in 2013.
