How Digital Defense Is Helping MSPs Through ‘Vortex Of Change’

‘We’ve got a flexible business model that actually tucks in with what [service providers] need a partner, not a vendor, a partner to be for them,’ says Digital Defense, Chief Revenue Officer Bob Layton.

Bob Layton, chief revenue officer at Digital Defense, says consumer behavior is behind the change we’re seeing in the channel today and why service providers are being “defined as to exactly what the market demands of them.”

“There is so much going on with applications being re-platformed to public cloud, with organizations changing their business model and above all the consumer is actually changing the way that they buy, they’re changing the way that they actually evaluate your services and they’re actually changing the way they want to consume services,” Layton told CRNtv. “So, in this vortex of change the channel has to change right along with it or they’re going to be left behind.”

Service Providers Need A Partner, Not A Vendor

At Digital Defense, Layton said, “We’ve got a flexible business model that actually tucks in with what [service providers] need a partner, not a vendor, a partner to be for them.”

Especially, as service providers face the challenges of:

How do I raise the blended margin of a multi-element offering?

How do I build a graduated service offering in my portfolio and teach my sales team how to effectively sell it?

How do I have a conversation with my customers and clients, so that they understand what they’re paying for and how I’m delivering value to them?

“That’s where all of this disruption kind of focuses, and we’re having conversations with providers every day of the week and tackling some of these big problems,” said Layton.

Adopting A More ‘As-A-Service’ Model

Phoenix-based MSSP Avertium told CRNtv one of the reasons they chose to partner with Digital Defense is because of its vulnerability scanning as a service capabilities, adopting a more “as-a-service” model to generate monthly recurring revenues.

Paul Caiazzo, senior vice president of security and compliance at Avertium, said, “I think one of the really key things that’s been really heartening to me is just how easy and how nice and good to work with the Digital Defense team has been. And how supportive they’ve been around building a joint go-to-market strategy, which we’ve been pretty successful at executing so far.”

“We weren’t looking for a vendor, we were looking for a partner, and I really do think that’s what we got from Digital Defense,” he added.

Three Pillars Of Differentiation

Layton described Digital Defense’s go-to-market as one focused around three pillars:

First, we offer rapid monetization of our offering into their portfolio, white-labeled.

Second, we enhance their offering and their brand, and we tuck straight into their operational run book.

Lastly, we provide Proof of Value (POV) reporting.

Proof of Value reporting, he said, is the conversation you have with your customer every single week, month, quarter, etc.

“It actually describes not only the value you’re offering them, but also the consulting that you’re bringing to the table so that they can either improve their posture, run more effectively, be more lean, and really morph and change with the times, which is what the channel partner should be doing,” added Layton.

Tune in to CRNtv to hear more from Layton and Caiazzo on the rapid adoption of managed services to meet the needs of customers today.