Chillisoft partners with BitSight to expand ANZ channel reach with local presence

Chillisoft CEO Gavin Lawless believes face-to-face relationships remain critical to channel success.

Chillisoft has partnered with BitSight and will distribute the full suite of BitSight products including threat intelligence, third-party risk management and exposure management across the Australian and New Zealand.

The arrangement reflects Chillisoft’s broader strategy to create more opportunities for partners and help vendors expand their local presence through an engaged, specialised channel ecosystem.

“Local presence is critical in helping our vendors grow. These days a lot of business can be done virtually, but there is still nothing like in-person time to get the most out of relationships,” said Gavin Lawless, CEO, Chillisoft.

“In IT, business is still done between people who have good relationships and who can trust each other. A lot of value is best done with some face-to-face time, ensuring virtual meetings are used when appropriate, but not everything is done behind a screen,” Lawless added.

Growing cybersecurity opportunities for partners

As the cybersecurity landscape becomes more complex, organisations are looking to bolster their defences and Chillisoft sees many new opportunities for partners.

“As the cybersecurity market expands, they’re continuing to look for ways of being strategic advisors,” Lawless said.

Chillisoft sees its role as helping vendors scale through partners in three key ways.

Finding partners with the capability to take the vendor to market, who have the right customer base that the vendor is targeting and who are prepared to invest time into a sales motion with that vendor.

Providing the technical capability to support the channel independently, with everything from demos to professional services.

Working with the vendor on partner enablement, customer mapping and marketing to their customer base to find new opportunities.

“We’re only valuable to our vendors if we develop new pipeline independent of their own sales efforts,” Lawless said.

Channel-first model offers opportunities for partners

This partnership marks a strategic shift for BitSight as it doubles down on a partner-exclusive model. By leveraging Chillisoft’s regional expertise, BitSight aims to streamline how its technology reaches the mid-market and enterprise segments.

Lawless said with GRC becoming more important to mid-size and large customers, Bitsight has an opportunity to expand its business across ANZ, but the key is partnerships.

“They recognise this, which is why they have moved from a direct sales motion to now being a channel only vendor,” he said.

“This is presenting some really good opportunity for those partners that want to work with the leading vendor in their category,” he ended.