MSP Leverages Relationship with WatchGuard to Migrate Customers to a Service Model and to Deliver Recurring Revenue Streams
Challenge
SysGroup specialises in managed IT services, Cloud hosting, security solutions, connectivity and strategic technical consultancy, with offices across the UK in Liverpool, London, Telford, Manchester and Newport. SysGroup has evolved through a series of strategic acquisitions, delivering innovative and bespoke solutions, technical expertise and exceptional levels of service. Underpinning this approach is a commitment to best-of-breed technologies and strong core vendor relationships, which has seen SysGroup become WatchGuard’s first Platinum Partner in the UK. More recently SysGroup made a decision to make WatchGuard its sole security partner in order to offer the highest level of capability and service to its customers.
Solution
As one of the leading UK Managed Service Providers (MSPs), the evolution of WatchGuard Cloud has been a major factor in SysGroup’s strategic plans. “The ability to monitor and manage all our customers remotely with a single pane of glass is hugely advantageous,” says Andrews Biggs, Systems Operations Manager at SysGroup. “Over the last five years we have been on a journey with many of our customers as they migrate to a deeper managed service model and WatchGuard has allowed us to add security to our growing MSP portfolio.” WatchGuard Dimension also helps SysGroup provide visibility and reporting to its customers, while WatchGuard’s Wi-Fi Cloud has led to the decision to promote WatchGuard as its number one vendor for access points.
SysGroup offers its customers the full range of services provided by the Total Security Suite and has seen a growth in demand for the Passport bundle for MSPs – with MFA, DNS protection and endpoint security. But it’s not just the technology that stands out for SysGroup. “WatchGuard has an unparalleled commitment to helping us to drive new business and support our customers,” says Nick Guite, Chief Sales Officer at SysGroup. “We have a great UK account team but also have peer-to-peer relationships at all levels including CEO and CTO. For our part, we make sure that our sales and engineering staff are 100% certified in WatchGuard’s Network Security, MultiFactor Authentication and Secure Wi-Fi specialisations.” The partner portal is also a major plus for the SysGroup sales and marketing team. “The portal covers every touch point and type of resource,” says Stuart Edmondson, Head of Marketing at SysGroup. “We are able to tailor, brand and get campaigns out very quickly to take advantage of market opportunities, while providing real-life examples of technologies such as the Trusted Wireless Environments and MFA, to help contextualise and show the true value of the WatchGuard solutions for our sales force.”
Results
Moving forward, SysGroup is keen to harness the full potential of WatchGuard Cloud management and templating. “The ability to roll out default configurations will make it even quicker to deploy managed security services,” adds Biggs. “The value of our business is in our services capability,” concludes Guite. “Our relationship with WatchGuard is a key factor in migrating our customers to a service model and delivering recurring revenue streams. There is no doubt that WatchGuard has helped SysGroup to grow and will continue to do so.” “For our target market of SMEs with between 50-500 seats, WatchGuard is simply the best there is,” said Guite. “A strong product portfolio combined with its high level of technical and account support, and commitment to innovation and integration, differentiate WatchGuard from the competition.”