New Zscaler Channel Chief: We’re ‘In Build Mode Right Now’

How important are partners for Zscaler?

Ninety-nine percent of their business touches an ecosystem partner. And that commitment to that strategy means a lot because so often in the IT industry with different manufacturers the go-to-market strategy changes quite often with how they’re going to support the partners.

And Zscaler has had an amazing commitment from the beginning of its business to stay committed to the partners. And now they’re looking to say, ‘We want to invest more. We want to scale. We want to get greater leverage. And we want to give partners an opportunity to increase their profitability with Zscaler.’

Do Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks share many partners?

If you look at the space right now and who is addressing the customer needs for cybersecurity, it’s becoming a very focused group of partners.

There is overlap there. But candidly, I don’t see that as a problem. The reality is there are so many cybercriminals out there. At the end of the day, there’s plenty of business for all of us, and we all need to be successful. The goal is to stop the bad guys.

If you look at the size of the ecosystem, Zscaler is a smaller company than Palo Alto Networks. So the ecosystem is smaller, but it’s no less important.

I’ve been very impressed with my conversations about the knowledge and awareness of the importance and leverage of the ecosystem for the future vision. When I started talking about go-to-market strategy and sales vision, the ecosystem was at the center of every conversation within Zscaler. So the commitments are at an all time high.