We have been very successful in leading the way in creating a program that offers flexibility, differentiation, and most importantly, profitability

The Fortinet Engage Partner Program provides a flexible platform to build a profitable and highly differentiated security practice that leverages the industry’s best solutions to drive customer success. 

Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC at Fortinet, offers his perspective and insights into the program’s momentum, success to date, and ongoing opportunity for partners.  

Can you give a brief overview of your partner program? What are some of the key aspects of interest to partners? 

Since the Fortinet Engage Partner program 2.0 was launched in March 2021, we’ve seen immeasurable channel growth. But all of that is only because our valued partners have joined us and recognized the opportunity offered to them.   

The new partner program was designed to provide an expanded set of benefits to partners, such as free training and our Specializations program, so that partners can leverage the full power of the Fortinet Security Fabric platform. This enables them better to meet the dynamic needs of their customers. 

In this era of rampant ransomware and remote workers, cybersecurity plays a more important role than ever. We’ve evolved the program in step with these customer needs. For example, new network ecosystems with hybrid cloud environments require specialized sales and technology skills that specialized partners can intelligently address. Fortinet is committed to helping our partners meet new and evolving customer demands created by work-from-anywhere models through Fortinet’s Engage Partner program and enablement tools for partners. 

What is the single most important takeaway about the program for partners, and what makes your solution offerings unique? 

We have been very successful in leading the way in creating a program that offers flexibility, differentiation, and, most importantly, profitability. We enable growth opportunity that is unique with our Security Fabric platform. We do not compete with partners, and instead offer sustained sales, marketing, and executive support to help partners grow productive, predictable, and profitable relationships. 

When we talk about what differentiates Fortinet from the competition unlike other platforms, the Fortinet Security Fabric is an industry-leading integrated platform that offers the broadest security products portfolio, with the flexibility to build solution offerings as the customer demand grows. Fortinet’s breadth of products is tightly integrated into one highly automated, platform and includes tools to connect with adjacent technologies. So we enable our partners to meet and exceed their customers’ security outcomes, and we give them the flexibility to grow services as their business expands.  

Fortinet enables partners to effectively respond to emerging security risks across the kill chain. We have many patents and an effective threat research and response organization that provides consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence. Also, our leadership in third party validation and independent analyst reports validate our offerings. Our network security solutions are the most deployed, most patented, and among the most validated in the industry. 

What are the emerging business opportunities for partners into network security?

As some employees go back into the office and others continue to work remote, many organizations have adopted a flexible hybrid work model. As a result, now is the time for our partners to take advantage to help address their customers' biggest cybersecurity challenges which is keeping up with today's workforce changes. In this period of rapidly expanding and evolving networks, the role that security plays is more crucial than ever. This means that how we position security to our customers also needs to evolve and expand. For example, new network ecosystems, heavily reliant on multiand hybrid cloud environments, require specialized sales and technology skills that can overwhelm sales teams trained in traditional security strategies. 

In addition to the partner’s level of engagement and business model, partners are able to select an area of specialization to receive additional support and benefits. Customized training, certifications, and programs are available for specializations in SD-WAN, Adaptive Cloud Security, Zero Trust Access, Operational Technology, Security Operations, LAN Edge and SD-Branch. 

Fortinet’s broad, integrated and automated Security Fabric platform offers industry-leading technology and proven credibility. Fortinet is committed to helping its channel partners grow their business and exceed their customer’s security objectives by helping them tap into market opportunities leveraging the breadth of the Security Fabric.

Can you share on your commitment on training and certification to address skill gaps?

Fortinet enables our partners to develop their skill sets through training and certifications provided by the NSE Training Institute.

The NSE Certification Program is an eight-level training and certification program designed to provide technical professionals with independent validation of their network security skills and experience. With more than 680,000 certifications issued and more than 1 million hours of training consumed from the onset of the pandemic to now alone, the award-winning NSE Certification Program continues to gain traction by offering one of the industry’s top cybersecurity training programs. Through this program, Fortinet is helping professionals and others to learn new skills, reskill or upskill in cybersecurity. Fortinet has introduces a new OT security course as part of its NSE level 7 certification to expand technical skills for securing OT environments. OT security is also covered in NSE 4, NSE 5 and NSE 6 courses. Additionally, adding to its four existing pathways, Fortinet recently released a new education pathway focused on Operational Technology with information on the potential job opportunities that exist related to this environment. This new OT education pathway serves as a roadmap in training and certifications and is helpful for anyone exploring a career in OT security roles.