Verkada ANZ head of sales on partner strategy and cloud education

In his new role, Steve Bray is using his cloud experience to help educate customers and partners alike.

Steve Bray stepped in to the head of sales role for ANZ last month and already has devised a channel strategy to grow Verkada within the region.

Firstly, Bray said the company aims to work with a more focused group of partners in the ANZ region to help its growth strategy.

“We're looking to work with a smaller group of partners, probably a better way of putting is a more focused group of partners,” he said.

“If you went in the market, there would be a lot of organisations we've worked with, but we don't have a constant engagement with. Whilst we’ve been grateful for the support that we've received from all of our partners, we are probably looking to be more focused.”

Bray explained the types of partners Verkada wants to collaborate with.

“[We want to] work with partners that either have some industry expertise or some industry engagement capability, work with partners that understand what Verkada is doing.

“Why we're different from what our legacy competitors are doing in the market and are comfortable taking the Verkada value proposition in the market,” he said.

“I'd say that we're looking for a deeper set of relationships with our channel partners and looking to nurture and grow those over the next 12 months.”

Bray is also working on cloud education – for both partners and end-users – as it is a new concept within the physical security space.

The conversations that were had in other parts of business, in sales, marketing or finance surrounding cloud about cloud 10 years ago, are a new conversation for the audience that Verkada is addressing.

"In the physical security space, it's a new idea of how do you move some of these legacy solutions into a cloud, and what does that mean when you're talking about physical security?” He said.

Bray noted that his years of cloud experience, will help in bringing education and awareness of cloud to these businesses.

He explained the partners are doing a “great job” at taking the message to the market, but these partners are sometimes new to the cloud too.

“But, sometimes, [the partners are] relatively new to it as well, helping them think about what is a cloud message? Or what does it mean when we go to the cloud and is my data secure?

“These questions have been asked and well answered in the past in other parts of an organisation, are still new questions for physical security decision makers.”

A channel-first company

Bray started his role nearly a month ago, with 20 years of technology experience under his belt working for brands such as, Cloudflare, Oracle, Zendesk and Salesforce.

This is the first time he has worked for a company that is 100 percent channel.

“Everything we do is through a channel and through a partner,” he said.

“We're focused on getting continuous feedback from our partners and trying to improve the way we engage with our partners.

“Making sure that our enablement, technical support, our marketing, our sales assistance for that partner channel does help them to be successful in in the ANZ market with Verkada.”

Bray added, “We're focused on continuing to grow our market, but doing that via channel, and working closely with those partners to make sure that we're being the best possible partner we can be in ANZ.”

As Verkada is 100 percent channel focused, Bray said it is critical for them to have effective relationships with partners.

He explained the two parts that distinguish Verkada from its competitors.

“There's a physical device, whether it's a camera and intercom, an access control for a door, which requires an activity to install that device,” Bray said.

“We're also managing the interface that device into a cloud-based platform. There is sophisticated software technology behind it as well.

“Our partners are critical for both parts of that solution that we're offering in the market and we do sell entirely through the channel.”

Bray explained the company is always looking for new solutions that will add value.

“The attractive thing about Verkada is we're offering that in the market. We're offering a new approach to an old problem,” he explained.

“Over the next 12 months or so we've had great traction in Verkada in Australia and New Zealand. It's about extending that growth as we go forward and continuing to serve our customers and partners across the segments.

“We are successful but also starting to focus a bit more on the enterprise space and presenting Verkada’s value proposition into that space,” he ended.