Outside-In Approach to Partners Key to Firm’s Continued Growth
Welcome to the new SonicWall!
2024 marks a high note in the transformation of SonicWall, which was founded in 1991 as Sonic Systems, shipping Ethernet cards for NuBus and SE expansion slots. Now, over thirty years later, SonicWall is serving the needs of well over 500,000 global businesses in more than 215 countries and territories, proudly standing as one of the foundational pillars of the cybersecurity industry.
The transformation process began in 2023 with the evolution of our executive leadership team. This resulted in SonicWall bolstering its North American and EMEA executive lineup and security expertise as well as strengthening its channel leadership.
SonicWall’s transformation didn’t end with our leadership changes. The company also doubled down on our commitment to providing the very best security solutions and business tools to our valued partners and customers around the globe.
To that point, SonicWall made several key strategic acquisitions in the last year. These came from taking an outside-in approach, listening intently to our valued partners about how we could better meet their specific needs and then executing on those insights to better improve our offerings and services.
The acquisition of Banyan Security, a leading provider of security service edge (SSE) solutions, strengthened SonicWall’s portfolio by adding zero trust security, relied on by leading fortune 100 companies to small businesses who are replacing legacy architectures for SSE solutions. This acquisition was a direct response to the current shift to more dynamic solutions that can adapt to the ever-evolving landscape of threats in the cloud. Banyan’s technology extends SonicWall’s portfolio to the cloud and provides partners and their customers with more flexibility, which is key to the continued development of SonicWall’s cybersecurity platform.
The acquisition of Solutions Granted, Inc., a top Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), delivering world-class cybersecurity solutions to hundreds of Managed Service Providers (MSPs), reinforces SonicWall’s commitment to our valued partners. Solutions Granted further extends our portfolio to include U.S.-based Security Operations Center services (SOCaaS), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), and other managed services that are tailor-made for MSPs and MSSPs. The acquisition, again, aligns with SonicWall’s outside-in approach, providing partners with a best-of-suite, comprehensive and flexible portfolio that accelerates their growth.
In addition to our strategic acquisitions, SonicWall is proud to unveil SonicPlatform, an innovative cybersecurity management platform designed to unify SonicWall products on a single integrated interface. This platform is especially beneficial for MSPs and MSSPs, enabling them to efficiently manage multiple client environments, automate key tasks, reduce operational costs, enhance service delivery, and garner valuable insights. SonicPlatform represents a significant stride towards a more integrated, efficient, and secure management ecosystem for SonicWall’s increasingly diverse suite of security solutions.
It’s encouraging to experience the remarkable momentum sweeping across our business and even more exciting to know that this very momentum is fueled in large part by the renewed focus on and growth of our partner community with key new partner wins over the last three quarters as part of a growing trend.
SonicWall enhanced our partner program with more strategic benefits and opportunities—and it is resonating. Within the last six months, our commitment to providing meaningful initiatives to partners has led to a 42% increase in partner growth year-over-year, with 63% of new partners transacting within the same quarter they onboarded. Additionally, partners in our Service Provider Program increased 91% year-over-year.
I am proud of our team for its ongoing commitment to excellence from a solutions and partner perspective. It is their combined contributions and efforts that continue to fuel the ongoing success of SonicWall and those we serve. As a team, we remain steadfast in our commitment to delivering the most security-rich, cost-effective, partner-centric, and user-friendly products and services to protect organizations from constantly emerging cyberthreats.
