Netskope’s Catalyst program a hit for MSPs in APAC

According to Kunal Jha, Regional Director in Asia for Netskope, feedback from MSPs have been overwhelmingly positive with many stating that this is what they’ve been asking for a while.

Netskope recently unveiled an overhauled MSP program as it looks to enable its partners globally with new orchestration tools for a faster and more simplified deployment of its SASE (secure access service edge) services for customers.

In the Asia Pacific region, the demand for managed single vendor SSE (Secure Service Edge) has been higher than that and it ever used to be, according to Kunal Jha, Regional Director in Asia for Netskope.

“We're hearing more demand from customers of all shapes and sizes, not just SMBs, but also mid-market customers, as well as some low-end of enterprise who would much rather not invest internal resources in management of the solution and outsource it to an MSP,” Jha told CRN Asia exclusively during the vendor’s partner summit in Singapore recently.

Jha explained that APAC is one of the fastest growing regions within Netskope globally, with plenty of opportunity in the region as there is a lot of legacy tech install base which is ripe for refresh and transformation.

“There are multiple countries where there are refresh and transformation projects that are happening now because a lot of large customers like banks and e-commerce retailers have played the wait and watch game. They want to let the technology mature, not invest in it at the beginning of the hype cycle. They want things to flatten. And now that SSE and SASE is a widely accepted solution to replace multiple point products, consolidation as well as simplification of overall operations is becoming a big discussion. So, growth is absolutely there which excites us and our partners,” he said.

Looking specifically at the Catalyst MSP Partner Program, which was unveiled for MSPs, Jha explained that the program is based on the systematic feedback Netskope received over the past year and a half.

“We were given to believe that our partners wanted more. On the outside, our earlier MSP Partner Program was simple, very easy to adopt, and we didn't make partners jump through too many hoops. However, internally, they said it was a little bit difficult to manage, so they gave us feedback in terms of new tenant creation, whenever they bring on board a new customer, took longer than it should. They said per-tenant management and operations was quite heavy. They said license portability wasn't as seamless as it should be.”

“They're a managed service provider. Customers may come and go, but they should have the ability to port licenses from one tenant to another at the speed of light, basically. So, with all of these bits of feedback put together, the new Catalyst Partner Program for MSPs, along with the Netskope Partner Orchestrator announcement, puts all of these issues to bed,” he explained.

The Catalyst MSP Partner Program

According to Jha, the new program enables tenant creation to be much faster, which is less than 15 minutes versus days that it used to previously take. He added that MSP partners now have full license portability in real time versus raising a request and waiting for that to get approved in the back end.

“The one big industry differentiator is that this is a single-vendor SASE orchestrator, meaning you're able to do SD-WAN, which is the network components, as well as SSE, the full security stack, under a single tenant, under a single orchestrator. This was not the case earlier, and this is not the case across the industry. SD-WAN and SSE were built as separate product lines across companies. They have separate orchestrators. They have separate managed service programs. Netskope decided to simplify that with this announcement,” he explained.

Apart from faster tenant creation and easier license portability, the new program has a whole bunch of support built for MSPs globally. This includes support with training and certification, support with MDF to do joint value creation, and joint go-to-market activities.

“We've also revamped the price list. Our pricing is a lot more attractive than it used to be. Premium support is no longer a separate line item. It is now included in the price, which our MSP partners have given us feedback that they are very excited by. There is a higher tier of support available in case of customers that need a faster turnaround time, but standard support, which we call premium support, is included,” he added.

The new program also now has three tiers – foundation, ascent and summit, all of which has different revenue requirements, and pay back in kind in terms of progressively more aggressive discounting, access to Netskope executives, as well as access to Netskope professional services for deployment support.

When asked how MSP partners have been reacting to the new program, Jha pointed out that the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with partners stating that this is what they’ve been asking for a while.

“A single vendor SASE orchestrator is a big differentiator as our security partners upskill themselves to sell networking and our infra partners upskill themselves to sell security. This is a great place for them to be in, and in that sense, the feedback has been largely positive, but there is another big group of partners that are not managed service providers. They still do traditional resale, and we have seen little to no conflict so far. Every once in a while, there will be a customer who wants to evaluate both traditional resale model versus an MSP model, but we have checks and balances in place, including a very strong deal registration mechanism to ensure partner interests are protected,” he said.

Jha also highlighted that Netskope will be looking to add more MSPs, especially more local ones in the countries they operate in the region. For example, there will be more local MSPs in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and even in Singapore.

“There's demand across the board and we receive numerous inquiries on a weekly basis. But we're very selective about whom we partner with. We would much rather not make it a crowded partner program, make it a partner program where both sides benefit and we're able to help these MSPs actually do profitable business with Netskope,” Jha added.

Opportunity for other partners

While the hype has been focused on the MSPs, Jha also pointed out that there are refinements and improvements being worked on for other partners as well. Given that Netskope partners with system integrators and resellers as well, he said the team, under the leadership of Andrew Haywood, the channels director for the region, is currently gathering feedback from these partners in many areas.

“So, you will see incremental improvements. I am unable to say at this time whether a big announcement is coming or not,” Jha said.

For Jha, the message for partners is quite clear though, especially with the AI security battlefield heating up.

“The opportunity is there for the taking today, not tomorrow. We must move. The first mover advantage will win. There are a lot of customers that are actually getting into 12-month contracts with new vendors that they don't know about because they just want to do a pilot. This is an opportunity for us to go in as a trusted incumbent vendor and a trusted Gartner leader who can also help them navigate these turbulent times,” he said.

“Netskope may not be as big in revenue as some of the other vendors that they deal with, but we're big in heart and we're big in flexibility. We're big in relationships. And we're asking partners to come and evaluate what this relationship can mean for them in the very near future. And we have the tools, the skills, the systems and the processes ready to make them successful today,” he concluded.