Blancco increases partner investment as it hunts for enterprise growth

Blancco Technology Group has updated its partner programme viewing the provision of increased rewards and support as a foundation for doubling its enterprise business in the next couple of years.

The data erasure specialist has indicated it is increasing investment in partner resources by 200%, with a view to using the channel as a foundation to double its enterprise business by 2025, putting 70% of deals through partners.

The vendor has been looking to increase its channel activity. Earlier this year, it hired Jon Mellon to take up the role of president, global sales, marketing and field operations at Blancco to help drive the enhancements.

“As I arrived and observed the situation and the opportunity at Blancco, it became clear to me that partnering couldn’t become part of our strategy, partnering had to be our strategy and become a partner-first organisation,” he said.

“It involves more than the salesforce engaging with channel partners in market, it involves building products that are straightforward and powerful, but easy to use. It involves marketing programmes that think channel first, an operations capability that allows channel partners ease of doing business with the company. This is not a destination, it’s a journey,” he added.

The programme features a single-tier structure with four sales motions – sell, service, build, distribute – that covers partner types including MSPs, solution providers, global system integrators, distributors, resellers and OEMs. Benefits for those that sign up include deal registration, discounts and a new rewards programme.

“There’s a huge opportunity to educate and engage enterprises on the risks of poor data management practices and how to mitigate them,” said Mellon. “We can only do this by leveraging our partners’ strengths and expertise, which is why we have a laser-sharp focus on improving our existing relationships and targeting new relationships with partners that manage and influence the enterprise data lifecycle.”

Mellon said there was a significant opportunity for those that got involved with the erasure market because companies were dealing with compliance regulations and looking to breathe fresh life into ageing hardware to support sustainability efforts.

“As a company, 90% of the business we do is still in and around assets that are at the end of their life – you can imagine how much data exists outside of assets at their end of life,” he added.

“The addressable market has not yet been calculated for Blancco. What’s standing in the way is our ability to put this capability in the hands of security professionals and data management users along the ILM continuum.”

In terms of hitting the ambitious growth targets, Mellon said that it recognised it could only be achieved with the support of partners, and the company understood it was making investments now that would pay off in the future as the volume of partner business grew.

“I would say the trigger for our growth in the next two to three years is going to be this channel investment,” said Mellon.