Darktrace head of partnerships, alliances & channel for APJ on the transformational project to become 100 percent channel

Abhijit Abhyankar says they believe that the partner’s success is the company's success.

AI cybersecurity platform Darktrace has transformed its go-to-market strategy to be 100 percent channel.

Abhijit Abhyankar was recently appointed as the head of partnerships, alliances and channels for APJ, and he tells CRN Australia how that transformation came about.

He said when he started at Darktrace last year, the company was less than 10 percent partners and now its 100 percent partner.

To achieve that, Abhyankar said Darktrace ran a transformation program for both their internal team and external partners.

“For an organisation that is going direct, it's very difficult to flick a switch and just turn around a big, huge ship,” he said.

“We first started the mastering the value of partnership workshops for our own teams across the board. Be it sales, be it pre-sales, be it our solution engineers to show them why work with the partner.”

Similarly, Abhyankar said they ran an external transformation outreach.

“We went to partners and said we are implementing this change of strategy, where now it's partner first, and we are incentivising our sellers to sell through partners,” he explained.

“There's a financial incentive for them to work with the partners. We train them how to work with partners.”

They also held lunch and learn workshops and other interactive events to show partners how to sell Darktrace’s platform.

“In fact, over the last 18 months, what we've seen is the sellers could see that if they were going direct and maybe doing a deal for $1,” he said.

“As they work with the partners, as they get insights, because the partners are trusted advisors, those deal sizes are increasing to $10 or $12 so it was a win-win benefit for both parties.”

“It's true transformation, and that's the fun part of my job.”

With the transition from direct to partner, Abhyankar explained how the company reacted to the change.

“The transitions are never easy. With anything. It's easy to comprehend the value, but it's very difficult to put it into practice,” he said.

“Even now, there are situations where especially in our field, the sellers are young, so they need a little bit of guidance.”

Abhyankar said the way they've rolled out the program, they have made provision for these pushbacks.

“For example, we regularly take success stories, we get the partner and maybe the seller with the partner, to show them how they collaborated, hw it worked, and showing them the little nuances and how they had fun along the way,” he said.

“It's a change of mindset. It's not just rules and regulations. There are rules, but this means essentially a change of mindset. What I find is, especially the younger they are, the quicker they are to absorb.”

With becoming partner-only model, Darktrace has unveiled its partner program, a three tired model.

“What we've done is we've created a three tiered, layered model. We are asking our partners to invest with us,” he said.

“We basically have got three layers, elite, premier and preferred. What it entails is the partners build a business plan with us based on which level they want to reach.

“It pertains to how much they can lean back and learn our technology, how certified they are, and that becomes very critical,” he added.

At the end of the day, Abhyankar said it is the partners who are working with the customers to solve their problems.

“If the partners understand the value our technology brings and how we can be part of the right cyber stack. That's how we will scale, and that's really working well,” he said.

Now that Darktrace is 100 percent partners, Abhyankar told CRN Australia the key role they play for the company.

“We truly believe that partner success is the company's success. That's how we rooted our philosophy in we can't be there in front of every customer all the time,” he said.

“We are essentially an innovative company. We focus on building products, and we are now going in and educating partners.”