technologyreseller.co.uk 11 programmatic changes with the likes of Microsoft that it is very, very difficult for them to manage licences, renewals and certifications; security is huge as well. AI and security are a burden. Customers of all sizes are demanding help, but it can be challenging for resellers and MSPs to scale up and skill up to meet that demand and provide a return on investment. We’re the sole UK distributor for a new entrant to the UK market called ContraForce, which last year won Microsoft’s Security ISV of the Year Award. They bring a managed MDR service to MSPs in that SMB space, which ties in very nicely with everything we do with Defender and Sentinel. With managed and unmanaged versions, it takes away the onus on resellers to build out a SOC but gives them the ability to move to an unmanaged model should they get to the point where they are comfortable dealing with alerts and remediation themselves. Importantly, it gives them that first step on the ladder, because otherwise SIEM and SOC services are just too complex, too costly and out of reach for an SMB. Some partners come to us because they would otherwise not get the care and attention they get from us and our marketing activities; and sometimes it is because cloud has become quite commoditised elsewhere – often, it comes down to 1% point of differentiation on cost – and we’re trying to move away from that and have value-led conversations. We appreciate we’re not always going to win with that, particularly in the midmarket and corporate space, but we’ve taken an active decision to double down on the value-added investments we make for that SMB partner channel, where we think it will resonate strongly. TR: You’ve mentioned several challenges your partners face, including commoditisation. What topics come up most often in your conversations with resellers/MSPs? JY: The rate of change – a lot of MSPs are still managing on-premises workloads and have customers that are somewhat slow to adopt new technologies; it can be challenging to find a realistic return on investment with AI; and there are so many these people. Tapping into some of our experience, we built a value proposition around People, Platform and Profitability. People – essentially having the right people, with one-to-one account management, pre-sales people and our own 24/7 UK-based helpdesk; Platform – no cloud business can perform without a platform and we think ours is one of the best, particularly when it comes to ease of integration with ERP systems and finance departments; and Profitability – this is what our Stratos partner program was born out of, and encapsulates where we think we can make a real difference, for SMBs in particular. TR: When was Stratos introduced? JY: It was launched officially in October, and we’ve already onboarded the first 20 partners. We make a commitment that we will help partners grow faster and be more profitable working with Exertis Cloud than with our competitors, and the way we do that is partly through our carefully curated portfolio of vendors and partly through an ecosystem of alliance partners. As a result we are able to offer Stratos partners things like Copilot Readiness Assessments that we can do on behalf of partners, giving them a blueprint that they can then scale. We work with a company called Noteworthy, made up of ex-Microsoft employees, which gives guidance on navigating Microsoft partner programs, specialisations and designations, as well as managing rebates. We partner with Fast Lane, one of Microsoft’s leading certified training partners, and will put people through MS-900, AZ-900 the AZ-104 certification. We have regular CloudConnect events, some in-person, enabling partners to interact with vendors face to face, and some on-demand, including webinars where we distil all the noise coming from vendors into the most relevant content. The different things we have built into the Stratos Partner Program would normally be the preserve of businesses doing more than £100,000 a month in recurring revenue, so it really moves the dial for SMB resellers. TR: As you say, Exertis came late to the cloud. What has prompted Exertis Cloud’s 500 partners to work with you? JY: Obviously, we have the heritage of Exertis, which trades with around 8,000 resellers, so we have the advantage of being able to speak directly to resellers/ MSPs that have traded with other areas of Exertis. INTERVIEW The latest recruits to the Exertis Cloud team: (l to r) Lauren Foster, Chris Cave, Sophie Lockwood and Radhika Dattani continued...
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