Fortinet wants to strengthen its partner ecosystem that it already has in place

Rajesh Maurya
Country Manager SAARC
Fortinet 

A worldwide provider of network security appliances and a market leader in unified threat management (UTM), Fortinet is currently present in 63 locations across world. From India perspective, Fortinet currently has direct presence in 10 locations in India with headquarter in Bangaluru. The regional team structure that it has in India is basically divided into four regions; Central and West, North, South 1 and South 2, where South 1 includes Channai, Tamilnadu, Andhra Predesh and karela business, while South 2 includes Karnataka. The north is the whole north region basically and there is a team in west which actually looks for west as well as the central part of India.

Fortinet has got around 500 odd partners in the country, from which around over 400 partners are actively doing some business for Fortinet in the country. In India, Fortinet also has a training department for years and now it has started training partner community on how to do post-sales support, how to do trouble shoot training on Fotinet line of products.

Forrtinet Synergy 2014

Fortinet has recently conducted “Synergy 2014” an event for their partners, where Fortinet launched one of their key partner initiatives -FortiHero Awards - recognising the success of individual heroes from the partner community for their excellence in providing network security solutions. The event presented an opportunity to witness the awards and meet partners for sharing their success stories. The idea is to be very close to partners and get feedback. Fortinet organized it in all four locations including Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.  Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager SAARC at Fortinet  says, “We want to have quarterly update session for partners, where we will try to transfer knowledge to the partners regarding the technology we are offering to the customers. Also, we want to strengthen our partner ecosystem that we already have in place.”

Fortinet’s distinguished partners in India

Fortinet has a network of highly-qualified distributors and resellers committed to the same objectives as Fortinet, which is providing world-class products, services and technical support to its   customers. Gold partners include Dimension Data, Sify Technologies and Wipro. Some other partners include ACPL Systems, AGC NETWORKS, CMC Limited, Hewlett Packard India Sales, P J Networks etc. Regionally, it has lot of partners like Amtrack which is doing lot of business for Fortinet in government sector. Besides these, it also has a lot of SI partners like Orient Technologies.

Fortinet’s Criteria to choose partners

For Fortinet, It’s very simple; the most important thing is whether the person is able to support the product line. The Partner has to be having a pre-sales team in place and post sales to support the productline. Other factors are, whether he is already have presence into selling security solutions, whether he carries knowledge of it and what market he is addressing. Fortinet has a Fortinet Partner program already in place based on which it has criteria for selecting a Bronze Partner or Silver or Gold Partner.

Fortinet’s expectations from Channel partners

Fortinet is a 100% channel driven company. We do not do any direct sales. This year, Fortinet is intending to grow close to 30% in the country. Fortinet’s one of the most important channel priorities is to help partners define their approach to the market through specializations targeting one or more Fortinet solutions. The specialization will transform partners from being pure box pushers to technology specialists who can provide customers with holistic security solutions. This year partners can look forward to grow their Fortinet business in the face of new opportunities in Wireless, NGFW, Web Application Security, DDoS prevention and Sandboxing. Partners can also grow up the value chain by demonstrating the business.

In terms of revenue, Fortinet is intending to grow close to 45% in the country. Presently, it is at No. 3 position in overall Network Security Appliance both globally and in India.  

Fortinet’s message for Partners

Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager SAARC at Fortinet would like to indicate to everyone in the channel fraternity, “Partners can look forward to doing better business with Fortinet in years to come because we will put a lot of efforts in marketing and we will also market them with us. We will also educate partners and customers on our solution line so that it becomes easier for them to sell products. ” 

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Nitin Patil, Director, Logix Microystem  

I have been in this industry for over ten years, out of nine years have been spent working with Fortinet. Working with Fortinet has been quite a wonderful association. All our efforts here have a much focused approach. Our local captive customers have grown and thereby expanding our business portfolio. For example we have launched a wireless subscription for our existing customer’s. Another addition to our services is the Fortitoken verification. We are always trying to meet our customers’ needs. 

Core Strength

Our holistic product and support services are truly our key strength. All our support teams are regularly trained on both pre and post sales services. Ensuring that all our services are the best in class, as it is highly crucial for the teams to understand exact requirements and provide the right product on every call

My message for the peers

In the Indian scenario, customers are not accustomed to pre sales costs, they prefer to test the product and then make an informed decision. We treat this as a confidence building exercise and once the customer is assured of our quality, we charge for the deployment and if and when they opt for post sales services.Two holistic post sales services are offered to all our customers, one being a 24*7 support and the other 8*5 support. We share the product costs and offer them the post-sales support at an additional support cost.

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Sandeep Arya, Chairman and Managing Director, Amtrack technologies

Fortinet is a great company to work with as the people are very supportive and they really ensure that the partner is happy. In any ecosystem, if the partner is not happy then the product cannot perform well in the market, so, from that perspective I feel that Fortine t is well geared up and they are really doing very well to make it happen. For last three years I don’t think that we had any issue anywhere where either they have not agreed to us or we have not agreed to them or end product is not been fruitful for them or for us.

Core Strength

The back end technical solution that our team is able to deliver to the customers is our key strength which makes Fortinet to rely on us.  Without many efforts from their side we are able to position Fortinet’s entire solution portfolio to the customers.

My message for the peers

Be sincere, work hard, there is no short cut. Thank God we are doing well and thankful to all my colleagues.

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Sukhpal Singh Sandhu, Head - Information Assurance, CISSP,  ACPL Systems

Being associated with Fortinet for a long time is quite a nice experience. we have a dedicated team and good support system with us, which in our DNA.  It is win-win kind of situation while working with Fortinet. If we do more business and get more customers,  it is good for sales thats what Fortinet wants from us. And intern, we make more margins, make more money.

Core Strength

Our technical expertise is our core strength, which is helping us to gain more benefits and helping Forinet to get more revenues. We have dedicated large team of Fortinet certified engineers. They not only have the certification, but also are experienced for deploying solution in large enterprises that too according to customer’s requirements. More so, we have a 24*7 support services for customers.

My message for the peers

The massage for the channel fraternity is quite simple, Fortinet has great technology and partners like us should have expertise in technology. The box is just like a PC or server, which requires an in-depth knowledge about the security and the switching, routing etc. They have to take it very seriously. Fortinet is offering a lot of support to its partners; they have complete information on their portal, any partner can log-in and get the information. Technically, they keep on updating us for every new technology coming.

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Muneer Ahmed, MD, Digital Track 

My tenure with Fortinet has crossed the 7 year mark. Overall it has been a good run. Not just personally, but even professionally. We have five certified FCNSP engineers who are very resourceful, we also have demo appliances which caters to all models from SOHO to the mid enterprise ones. This allows us to add value to our customer services on demos, standbys etc.

Core Strength

We believe in providing a 360 degree service with our products, which is one of our core strengths. We work across all verticals and all our engineers are duly certified. Our offices are conveniently located so as to cover the whole of the southern region which drives more faith from our clients.

My message for the peers

We constantly endeavor to provide a holistic service to our customers with unified security while cracking some large deals on our enterprise accounts is always a feel good factor for someone in the service industry. Digital Track is present in three locations across the country, is also expanding in other regions.

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Sanjay Seth, Director, PJ Networks

I am associated with fortinet since 2005. Since starting, we are only working with Fortiner firewalls and not taking any other vendor. Our experience is very good with regard to support, boxes and even technology. Since 2005, all my customers are still with me and they are giving revenues, and buying more n more boxes. We use to make money after the sales and after sales support. In pre-sales, it is quite difficult to make money.

Core strength

Technology is out core strength, which is helping Fortinet to gain revenues. We are a technology company and we go for new technology and new things to the customers. This way, we are selling technology to the customers and this is the reason we are with Fortinet for a long time.

My message for the peers

Selling a product is not a very difficult. If a customer asks for anything for a firewall, Fortiner is there along with its strong support level. Any layman person can also install Fortinet products easily. They do not need a very high technical knowledge in the company to support Forinet or to install fortinet Solution. You just need to have complete knowledge of the product, which you need to convey to your customers. My 100 percent customers are now fully capable for installing Fortiner for themselves.

There are webinars every fortnight and I try to attend those webinars.