With the cybersecurity giant now taking a ‘partner-first approach on services’ for Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, ‘it’s a big cultural change for us,’ CrowdStrike’s Daniel Bernard tells CRN.
CrowdStrike announced a major channel expansion Tuesday as the cybersecurity giant unveiled its new Services Partner Program, which will see the company rely on partners to predominantly deliver the services around its fast-growing Falcon Next-Gen SIEM offering, top CrowdStrike executives told CRN.
The company is taking a “partner-first approach on services” for Next-Gen SIEM with the program, in a move to more heavily depend on the channel for services ranging from consulting and implementation to managed services around SIEM, said Daniel Bernard (pictured), chief business officer at CrowdStrike.
[Related: CrowdStrike, Accenture Launch ‘Major’ SIEM Modernization Partnership]
“It’s a big cultural change for CrowdStrike, in terms of embracing and inviting and bringing partners into services,” Bernard said. “What we’re really doing is evolving how we work with this audience and working with them in a new way for the first time. It’s a huge cultural move for us.”
SIEM (security information and event management) is a core technology used by security teams for logging, analytics and search capabilities, and a crucial system for responding to and mitigating cyberattacks.
While the technology first originated decades ago, CrowdStrike has aimed to become a disrupter in the space with its Falcon Next-Gen SIEM. Key advantages with CrowdStrike’s SIEM offering include improved security outcomes through providing a modernized approach that makes full use of cloud-native technologies and AI, according to the company.
In an interview with CRN, CrowdStrike Co-founder and CEO George Kurtz said the company is depending on partners to help make Next-Gen SIEM a reality for customers.
“With Next-Gen SIEM, you really need a consultative approach to think about how to transform into an AI-powered [Security Operations Center], as opposed to a legacy SOC,” Kurtz said.
Without a doubt, “having the partners to help transition customers from their legacy, people-intensive processes — to a much more automated and AI-led process — is critically important,” he told CRN.
CrowdStrike’s new Services Partner Program will focus on global system integrator partners as well as MSP and MSSP partners. The program will include new incentives and training as well as tools and support from the cybersecurity vendor, according to the company.
Ultimately, the new program represents an evolution in the company’s partnering strategy that has the full support of CrowdStrike, from top leadership all the way down to field and corporate salespeople, Bernard said.
“This is a big move for the company,” he said. “It’s something we’re all behind.”
CrowdStrike introduced its new Services Partner Program in connection with its Americas Partner Symposium, which is taking place this week in Park City, Utah.
Partner Perspective
An executive at Wipro, No. 15 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 and one of the initial participants in the Services Partner Program, applauded the moves by CrowdStrike around Next-Gen SIEM and the channel.
The fact that CrowdStrike is making moves to “enable their alliance partners to do services is, for a company like ours, a very friendly way to operate,” said Tony Buffomante, senior vice president and global head of cybersecurity and risk services at Wipro. “We don’t feel like we’re competing with them on services.”
Wipro is utilizing CrowdStrike’s Next-Gen SIEM in its Cyber Defense Centers and, overall, has found that CrowdStrike is the fastest-growing technology provider among the company’s most strategic cybersecurity vendors, according to Buffomante.
The new Services Partner Program is further evidence that at CrowdStrike, “they see the value in the relationships that their alliance partners provide,” he said.
“For us, this partner program has been a really good match between what our skillsets can bring — from an implementation and an ongoing run perspective — and what [CrowdStrike is] trying to push more broadly in the market,” Buffomante told CRN.
The CEO of another major CrowdStrike partner, Evotek, No. 92 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500, echoed the sentiments about CrowdStrike’s moves to double down on the channel.
“They have been very vocal that they’re leading on the channel,” said Cesar Enciso, founder and CEO of San Diego-based Evotek. “I have seen them really come forward with [us] and say, ‘Hey, how do we do this together?’”
Notably, CrowdStrike also did a “fantastic job” on responding to last summer’s widespread IT outage caused by a defective update from the vendor, taking accountability for the issue and working to help customers to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, he said.
With the incident now behind the company and the vendor making moves to ramp up even further with the channel, “I see CrowdStrike getting larger and larger and larger,” Enciso said. “I could see them really capturing a lot of market share in the next couple of years.”
