AI-powered solutions driving APAC growth as Palo Alto Networks celebrates regional partners

“The winners have demonstrated a proven track record across platform alignment, transformative outcomes, service excellence, AI innovation and market expansion, and their success underscores the power of our partnerships,” comments Michelle Saw, Vice President, GTM Shared Services and Ecosystems, Asia-Pacific and Japan at Palo Alto Networks.

At the Palo Alto Networks Partner Executive Kick-Off (PEKO) in Bali, the cybersecurity vendor recognized and celebrated its top partners of the year in the region. With the Asia Pacific region remaining a key growth market for Palo Alto Networks, the annual awards is a testament to partners that have showcased outstanding contributions and unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional security solutions for joint customers.

According to Michelle Saw, Vice President, GTM Shared Services and Ecosystems, Asia-Pacific and Japan at Palo Alto Networks, the partner ecosystem is fundamental to the cybersecurity vendor’s success, and these awards gives them the opportunity to recognize those driving consistent innovation and impact. Saw believes that as the threat landscape continues to evolve, particularly with cyber criminals increasingly adopting AI, the role of partners becomes even more critical.

Looking at growth in the region, Saw stated that the results from recent earnings highlight a fundamental market shift whereby customers now understand a fragmented defence is no defence.

“This success is directly tied to our platformization approach, which is fundamentally changing how we engage with customers, especially here in the JAPAC region where we have grown by 17% as a region in the last financial year. By embracing a platform-first mindset, we move beyond selling individual products. Instead, we focus on delivering tangible outcomes that strengthen a customer's overall cybersecurity posture. This shift is enabling us to secure larger deals, as clients are looking for comprehensive solutions, not just single tools, to address their complex security challenges,” Saw said.

As such, AI-powered solutions remain a key driver of growth for the vendor as Saw pointed out the rapid expansion in the area with many partners, particularly MSSPs, embracing it. She believes this allows them to scale their operations and provide more robust support to their customers.

“As much as partners do compete with one another, they recognize the importance of how they can learn from one another to scale their business. I think that is the value we bring to the table, to enable our partner to scale. We are not looking at a partner like a transaction partner. We want to help them to grow, we want to help them to create value in their ecosystems to grow the business. And ultimately, we jointly believe we want to strengthen our customer cybersecurity posture. What we and our partners do are very meaningful. We are not just selling a product, we are creating an impact, delivering an outcome to help to protect our customer business,” Saw explained.

The 2025 Asia-Pacific and Japan Award winners

Palo Alto Networks commends its partners for their efforts over the past year in enabling organizations to stay ahead of sophisticated cyber threats and strengthen their defenses. Saw pointed out that this year’s winners exemplify the impactful work partners are doing across the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, in delivering and supporting solutions to our customers that help them manage cybersecurity more effectively today.

“The winners have demonstrated a proven track record across platform alignment, transformative outcomes, service excellence, AI innovation and market expansion, and their success underscores the power of our partnerships. We are truly better together and I am grateful for the role each of them plays in driving stronger security outcomes for our customers in the region,” Saw said.

NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS, Inc (Japan) was recognized as Pinnacle Partner of the Year while NetSec 2025 – ACPL Systems Pvt Ltd (India), SASE 2025 – IIJ Global Solutions Inc. (Japan), Cortex Cloud 2025 – NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS, Inc. (Japan) received the Strategic Win of the Year award. Westcon ASC Asia Pacific received the Partner Services Excellence Award and NTT DATA, Inc took home the Global Alliance Innovator Award.

For distributors, the Distributor Excellence Award went to SCSK Corporation (Japan) while Tech Data Corporation (India) received the Commercial Impact Distributor Award. In the AI category, NCS Pte Ltd (ASEAN – Singapore) and e-Tech System Co. Ltd each won the AI Cybersecurity Vanguard award.

Apart from honoring partners, the annual PEKO event serves as a vital forum for partners to exchange knowledge, reflect on the past year, and align on strategic priorities for the year ahead. With this year’s theme, ‘Accelerate Now’, the event is anchored in taking bold action and delivering growth at speed.

“My ambition for our partners is to enable how they can continue to create relevance with their customers and how they can strengthen their customer cybersecurity posture. That is the mandate. Every organization is going through optimization. But very interestingly, the cybersecurity spend and budget has doubled over the last three years. That means customers know the importance and the urgency for them to invest, to consolidate, to strengthen their cybersecurity posture. And what I would like to make sure that we need to leverage on our partners to expand the reach,” Saw added.

As cyberattacks don’t wait for anyone, Saw believes partners need to be ready and they need to be scaled to be able not just reach and support all the customers in the region but also bring value to them.

“In every area that we have presence, customers are looking at partners who can deliver outcome value, Customers no longer look for the cheapest price the partner can deliver, they're going for the value outcome. That's what we continue to encourage our partners to focus on. And that's where the enablement piece is very important, which is why we are focusing on that. Because if we do it right, if we support our customers, the revenue will come. The vision is not going after the revenue. The vision is really going after how we can help to secure our customers' cybersecurity posture. The byproduct of it is revenue,” concluded Saw.