We are not limited by demand, the opportunity lies with partners to service that demand, says Proofpoint CEO

Surging enterprise demand for AI and data security is creating a services opportunity, but partner skills will determine who captures it.

India’s cybersecurity growth story is entering a new phase. Enterprise demand for AI risk protection, data governance, and sovereign controls is rising, driven by regulatory pressure and expanding attack surfaces. But according to Proofpoint's CEO, market appetite is no longer the constraint.

“Last year, we launched our sovereign solution and hired a dedicated team in India. Since then, the number of POCs has increased, and teams are currently stretched to meet demand. At this point, we are not limited by customer demand or market opportunity; we are limited by our ability to service that demand,” Proofpoint’s CEO, Sumit Dhawan, told CRN India.

This is where the partner opportunity lies, Dhawan said.

The company’s India business quadrupled last year and is expected to grow at a similar pace again. It will double the team in India in 2026.

Currently, AI adoption is pushing enterprises to simplify fragmented security environments. Many organisations operate dozens of specialised tools across identity, network, detection and data protection. As governance complexity increases, that sprawl becomes unsustainable.

The Channel’s new position in the AI control stack

As AI adoption grows, organisations will need to rethink where to consolidate and where to expand technology stacks.

Partners now have an opportunity to guide customers toward fewer, strategic platforms that deliver broader capabilities, said Dhawan.

“By consolidating platforms, customers can free up operating capacity and budget, which can then be redirected toward AI security.”

This rationalisation requires partners to act less as product resellers and more as architecture advisors.

Dhwan mentioned that the cybersecurity risk surface is expanding faster than enterprise skill availability. Medium-sized enterprises may adopt AI rapidly to enhance business outcomes, but often lack the governance maturity to manage associated risks.

In this environment, traditional resellers and partners can evolve into managed service providers.

“The advantage is that agentic technologies allow partners to deliver such services in a leveraged way. They do not need to hire a large number of people; instead, they can use agentic solutions to scale offerings efficiently across multiple customers,” said Dhawan.

Moving up the AI control stack requires more than advisory capability and partners need to demonstrate integration and interoperability in practice.

While both vendor-led and partner-led Centres of Excellence (CoE) can serve this purpose, and as Sumit notes, both models are valid, he personally prefers the partner-led approach.

“When a partner builds the centre of excellence, they develop the expertise to continually operate it and demonstrate what 'good' looks like. More importantly, it does not become vendor-centric. The partner can bring together two or three critical platform stacks that need to work together for customers and present them as a unified solution,” said Dhawan.

He added that cybersecurity is not a single-vendor game.

No provider can realistically cover every requirement. In practice, enterprises need three to four core platforms working together for detection, network security, human- and AI-centric threat prevention and data protection, and often identity.

Dhawan said, “A partner-led centre of excellence shows how different solutions integrate and operate together. That proof builds customer confidence and allows them to view the partner’s approach as a strategic, integrated direction rather than a collection of isolated tools.”

The constraint is not demand; it is value selling and delivery capability

If demand is strong, where is the friction? According to Dhawan, it is not market creation. It is the partners’ capabilities.

The market already exists, and demand can be generated rapidly. The real constraint is coverage, the ability to sell effectively and the ability to deliver successfully against customer requirements.

In terms of key skills, Dhawan sees two major priorities. First, delivery capability around threats and data loss.

This includes architectural expertise, policy design, governance frameworks, and technology implementation.

It is not just about data engineering. Partners must understand where the data resides, how to govern it, how to implement cybersecurity policies, and how to technically operate and enforce those controls.

Second is the ability to implement safeguards around AI.

Dhawan said, “Application environments are evolving to include both traditional logic and AI or agentic applications interacting with data. If partners can establish guardrails on data and guardrails on AI, they position themselves as highly strategic partners to customers.”

He clarified that his organisation does not intend to build a large services arm to address this gap.

“We want our partners to benefit from the service opportunity, in addition to reselling our products. Our partner program is structured to make that economically attractive,” Dhawan added.

Recently, Proofpoint has released a tiered global partner program - named the Proofpoint Partner Network - with incentives based on new customer acquisition and renewals, demand generation funds, and data security.

Model rewards long-term commitment

The foundation of the model is market reality. Demand is being driven by regulatory pressure, including the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and by enterprise AI adoption, which is accelerating focus on data governance. Without a real market need, partner programs are theoretical.

According to Dhawan, the company has strengthened its support structure by hiring more people focused on enabling and supporting partners.

He mentioned, “Our commitment is on both fronts, partner profitability and partner enablement.”

However, Dhawan mentioned that this is a two-way relationship.

“We expect partners to invest with us as a strategic provider and to focus on making customers successful with our solutions. It is not enough to simply bring customers in; partners must be able to take them through the full journey and ensure successful delivery.”

The company is betting big on human-centric security to drive the company towards its $5 billion revenue target by 2030.

“As we move toward the $5 billion goal, I would like to see India account for around 5 percent of that, roughly $200 to 250 million,” Dhawan told CRN India.

Partners benefit from ongoing profitability as the business renews year after year.

Data security and AI security are sticky technologies that provide critical value, if partners deliver that value successfully to customers, said Dhawan.

He added, “So the model is straightforward. We expect partners not only to sell but to ensure customer success. In return, if they do that, they benefit not just from one-time profitability but from recurring profits driven by renewals, relevant services, ongoing demand, and continued enablement from us.”

Consolidation will create winners and losers

Today, enterprises find themselves running anywhere between 60 and 125 security tools. Each tool carries licensing costs and operational overhead. The natural response is consolidation.

According to Dhawan, traditionally, partners have sold products based on individual use cases, because that is how demand developed. There is now an opportunity to move toward value-based selling centred on consolidation and integrated architecture.

That has not typically been the standard selling approach, but if partners embrace it, it becomes a strong opportunity.

He added that as consolidation accelerates, partners will need to decide which vendors they align with and what integrated solution strategy they bring to customers.

Many partners prefer to offer customers multiple choices, but consolidation may require clearer positioning.

“Partners will need to determine when to provide choice and when to standardise around a platform approach. These are the strategic decisions partners will have to make,” Dhawan said.