Barracuda Partners Prosper During Pandemic Security Challenges | Murali Urs

Murali Urs, Country Manager, Barracuda Networks, India explains the partner dynamics and how effectively they served the security requirements during pandemic.

 What are the solutions and services in the Barracuda portfolio currently for the Indian market?

Barracuda caters to customers across verticals and various sizes. There are various solutions that cater to the E-mail platform. These are the email protection solutions that secure the applications on the web. We have solutions that cater to network security. We also work towards securing networks because as time goes on we will see employees work from remote locations and so secure network access will become very critical.

Most of our products are available on-premise as well as virtual. We also conduct forensic analysis to understand and find from where the breach happened and the damage caused. Our web application firewall is also famous among customers as most companies are going towards cloud system more and more.

How is the Barracuda partner network structured in India?

We have a three tier distribution model that includes distributor, reseller and then the product reaches the customer. There are three categories in among our partners as well — these are Premier partners, Preferred partners and then there are the Authorised partners. Each partners have their own expectation based on their certification standpoint and revenue stand point. We give more time, energy, commitment to our partners based on that expectation point.

What is the total number of partners that Barracuda works with?

In India we have 3 distributors, Redington, RoundRobin and Tech Data. From India, we also cover other regions like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. The number of Premier partners in India is about 35, number of Preferred partners is 30 and there are about 150-200 authorized partners, because any new partner who joins Barracuda falls under this category.

How did Barracuda support the partners in terms of their cash flow challenges during the pandemic?

Barracuda as a company has the most numbers of OEMs. We do not get involved in the commercial transactions that happen between the customers, the Tier 2 partners and the distributor. We did not get involved during the pandemic. But we did help the partners find new opportunities and find new ways to existing customer bases for new business. But as an organization we do not get involved in the 3 steps which are the customers to partners and partners to distributors.

How did Barracuda balance between retaining existing customers and acquiring new customers?

The main problems of the customers were securing their application which were moving to cloud very quickly or converting them into web applications. The next problem for the customers was the challenges they faced in managing their e-mails. In the entire e-mail security market, we are the only organization that has a comprehensive solution that can cater all the challenges that the customers are facing.

We have a training simulation solution which is called PhishLine by which the behaviour, actions of the customers would be tracked where we simulate set of emails which can fine-tune the set of people of an organization. This is because the behaviour of people in finance department, sales, marketing C-level employees are all different. There is also forensic where if a breach happens in a customer’s network via email, Barracuda scans the network and provides a report on where the breach happened, what all are infected and provide a remedy for the breach that already has happened.

How the existing SLAs were impacted when partners were upselling or cross selling more solutions or customers were adding more deliverables for partners?

The up-time we gave to our customers the solutions provide, the data that was being backed up, the amount of data that was available, the amount of data that was being archived was probably about at 99%. And we and delivered this up-time to every customer. We have been able to help the partners commit and deliver with very good email security solutions and email protection to our customers with our products. We did not receive any complaints from our customers about not receiving this particular service from the product.

How was Barracuda helping partners prove remote support and services to customers especially when everyone was in a WFH mode?

Our tech team is based out of India and they are working 24/7.  Lot of employees and staff from the tech team had their challenges of working from remote areas. They had to address their own challenges that they had. We provided uninterrupted support no matter where our teams were in all areas whether it came to web application security, email firewall, web security.

We did not face any challenges or any interruption but the team very quickly adapted to the changes and started supporting the customers, helping then. We here at Barracuda have a unique help system where the customer does not choose the numbers dictated to them. There is a human present in call to help them guide them.

What are the partner programs and incentive schemes that Barracuda has designed for its partners?

Our partner programs are very successful globally and we run the same in India. The 3 level of partners that we have get different level of support from Barracuda which includes the MDF route. With this marketing money, they are given training both online and hands on. We spend a lot of time with then on end customer activity and help them create lot of creative content which contains EDM, webinars, e-mailers that they want to do. They get our support on an matrix based discount which help them compete against the internal partners that Barracuda have.

How did you digitally train partners on their skillsets and how did you reorient them to start selling digitally?

First one month and half, it was a challenge everyone went through as nobody expected to wake up one day in the morning and knowing that you are not going to go anywhere and stay put where you are. It took Barracuda some time but we were good at getting the acceptance from the partners about the products and solution that Barracuda has and the mode of delivering it to them and to their customers.

After the first 4 months of the pandemic, we were able to pull in close to 3000 people to attend our webinars and training session. Those included webinars for the end customers, partners, generic products and industry based sessions. After these sessions the partners can do remote sales. We did not need to have only physical presence to do selling but even then customers were fine doing business in the virtual world. We had support from the customers that kept the engine running and kept the traction.  We did not lose any customers or partners during this time as well.

What are going to be the key focus areas from Barracuda for the next two to three quarters both in terms of customer and partner perspective?

The market that Barracuda is in is very interesting. It has a very high potential because in the current times as the market moves forward there will be a big investment area in terms of security. As cloud adoption increase, and remote working increases, security will be given a big importance by the customers.

For Barracuda as an organization, we see ourselves extremely well positioned in multiple places. For example, in the email security market, the total addressable market is about $2.3 billion and growing at a compounded rate of 21% every year. So we are on the right market there. We are in the right positions to help our partners and also to address the customers.

What are the specific channel programs that Barracuda is planning in 2021?

As of now we are in the planning mode as the financial year ends on 28^th of Feb so we are still in discussion about how to evolve the program and where to make changes. The changes will be in terms of technology based for the partners or revenue based. So that all is in discussion and currently there is no presentable data now. You will have to wait till the new financial year when the plans are out.

What will be Barracuda’s message for both partners and customers?

Today change is the only constant whether we want it or not. The channel partners will have to learn to adopt their business on the changing scenario. The skill-set way of working will have to be in the way as the market demands. We have seen some partners who are very good but they are not successful, but some partners who were not that good adapted very well and quickly and emerged as significant players in the market. So people need to be on the lookout for changes and adapt then quickly. The important part is to up-skill, upgrade and up-sell the kind of solution they have to the customers they have and the type of market they are selling into. The business need to go to the drawing board and change their plans accordingly as the sales model emerges.

Customers will have to look at new ways of enhancing the infrastructure as the hackers had a great time. Even after pandemic we will not be going straight back into the previous structure so obviously security will a very important aspect.