Cyber Threats and Opportunities: What Channel Partners Need to Know to Grow
The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, and channel partners must stay ahead of the curve to successfully defend their customers and grow their businesses. The good news is, according to Canalys, the global cybersecurity market is expected to grow by 13% in 2023, providing channel partners with significant growth opportunities.
Key threats and opportunities could positively or negatively impact channel partner businesses this year.
1. The increasing demand for managed security providers (MSP):
The demand for cybersecurity managed services will grow 16% to US$70.2 billion in 2023, according to Canalys estimates. Complexity in the end-customer IT environment and difficulty finding specialist skills for in-house hires make MSPs increasingly popular as organizations seek ways to outsource their cybersecurity needs. Channel partners that offer managed security services can tap into this growing market, benefit from reoccurring revenues from services, and build deeper relationships with customers. As per Canalys, total cybersecurity-related services will grow 14% in 2023.
2. Platform Consolidation:
Managing solutions from multiple vendors drives cost and inefficiency for partners. This can lead to security gaps and vulnerabilities. Organizations are increasingly consolidating their security vendors in an effort to improve risk posture, reduce complexity and improve efficiency. Thus, platform consolidation enables organizations to effectively manage security across their entire business. According to a Gartner® report*, “Seventy-five percent of organizations are pursuing a security vendor consolidation — in 2020, this figure was only 29%.” Channel partners can help organizations with this process by providing guidance and expertise.
3. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI):
The rise of generative AI has raised serious concerns about the gravity and complexity of cyber threats. While threat actors will weaponize AI to increase the sophistication of cyberattacks, technology vendors will use AI to automate tasks, detect threats, and respond to incidents. Channel partners can help organizations adopt AI-powered solutions to improve their security posture.
4. XDR can improve managed cybersecurity outcomes:
XDR is a powerful tool that unifies data feeds from different technologies in the stack on one platform. This allows security teams to detect threats that would otherwise go undetected more quickly and effectively. As per a Gartner report*, “By the end of 2023, more than 80% of organizations plan to have XDR and nearly 70% plan to have secure access service edge (SASE)”. A few benefits of implementing XDR for organizations are:
- XDR improves threat visibility by providing a single view of the entire attack lifecycle by collecting and visualizing data from various sources, including endpoints, networks, and email.
- It improves accuracy and accelerates detection by unifying threat data into a single interface and reducing the mean time to response (MTTR)
- It could help channel partners generate new revenue opportunities by up-selling XDR solutions to their customers.
If you are a channel partner, XDR could help you to improve your security offerings and provide your customers with the threat protection they need.
5. The need for security awareness training:
Employees are often easily exploited and the weakest link in an organization's security defenses. As per a Gartner® report**, “Nearly 60% of cybersecurity leaders plan to keep awareness staffing levels flat, and only 10% of cybersecurity leaders plan significant increases to awareness spending over the next 18 months.” Channel partners can help organizations educate their employees about cybersecurity threats and ways to protect themselves.
The cybersecurity channel is a rapidly changing environment, but by understanding the key trends and factors that are shaping the market, channel partners can start developing strategies to succeed in the years to come.
How WatchGuard can help channel partners succeed
WatchGuard’s Unified Security Platform® architecture is a single, powerful, and scalable platform for helping channel partners to modernize and expand their security. Our XDR solution, WatchGuard ThreatSync, is part of the Unified Security Platform framework. ThreatSync saves security team cycles, speeds detection, and increases accuracy by automatically correlating relevant threat data from the entire WatchGuard Unified Security Platform architecture.
WatchGuard received an exceptional Net Promoter Score from its customers and channel partners in a survey by Frost & Sullivan. This is a testament to our successful partnering strategy and our commitment to addressing cybersecurity's most relevant challenges. In fact, two out of three WatchGuard resellers state they are very likely to recommend WatchGuard to others.
