Episode 2 with Jay and Michelle McBain

Narator:

Welcome to Cyber 9 0 9, your source for wit and wisdom in cybersecurity and beyond. On this podcast, your host, veteran chief security officer and Cyber Aficionado Den Jones taps his vast network to bring you guests, stories, opinions, predictions, and analysis you won't get anywhere else. Join us for Cyber 9 0 9, episode two with the duo that have been called The Power Couple of the Channel World, Jay and Michelle McBain.

Den:

Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Cyber 9 0 9. Our new podcast is digging into the realms of cyber, but then also things beyond some fun stuff here and there where episode number two, and I am privileged really because this couple, you can hardly get them in the same room together traveling so much. So we've got Jay and Michelle McBain, but Michelle, you've got this double barreled name, right? So I'm going to let you guys introduce yourself so I don't start butchering shit and get things wrong. So Michelle, why don't you go first?

Michelle:

Sure. Well, my name is Michelle Rego McBain, and I am joined by my loving husband and partner in life and family and all those things. Also the tech channel.

Den:

Awesome. So Jay, how about you?

Jay:

Jay? McBain, chief Analyst. I've been around the channel 30 years, been in managed services since the very early days of 1999.

Den:

Yeah. So Canals, can you explain a little bit about your role now and let's say a bit about the journey that got you here.

Jay:

Yeah, sure. So Canals is in the same market as you'd find a Gartner, a Forester, an IDC. We're an analyst firm. Canals is Latin for channel. So the difference we take is as much as you focus on the 87 billion of market TAM and cybersecurity, we double click on that and look at the $2 that partners make for every one of those dollars. So making now a quarter of a trillion dollars industry when you include partner services and we break it down to which services, which kinds of partners, how the entire world works indirectly by working with and through and to partners.

Den:

Wow. And so I think of you guys as the industry people talk about you two, you're the power couple of the channel world, right? So Michelle, so you and I met during my time at SonicWall. Can you explain your role and then also your history?

Michelle:

Sure, yeah. I'm the global VP of channels for SonicWall. I've been there about a year and a half now, and it's been a wonderful journey meeting great people and along the way, including our amazing partners around the world. I've been in the technology channel for 20 years now, plus almost. And so I'm really excited because it's been an evolution. We've seen a lot of changes along the way, and I like to tell people right now, we know it's not if, but when cyber criminals are getting more selfie as we know. So being a part of a longstanding technology company like SonicWall, who's been in the cybersecurity industry for 33 years, working with a lot of small to medium business partners and customers around the world, and now moving really into mid and enterprise as well with some of our great acquisitions and our product portfolio has been a really exciting part of the ride.

Den:

Awesome. Yeah, so we met through one of the acquisitions. So I used to run security at Banyan and then we were acquired. I was a CSO for a minute there at SonicWall. Prior to starting my own cyber firm. The one thing, my takeaway was we'd done some tours together and there were so many of these companies, is it 15,000 active partners that SonicWall has? I mean, that's a lot of companies to have relationships with. So how do you build those relationships, Michelle, and how do you keep them established?

Michelle:

So one of my favorite stories was from a partner of mine and he said to me, Michelle, I'm married. And I said, I know you're married. And he said, if I don't talk to my wife in a day or a week or a month or a year, am I still married? And they said, my friend, I don't think you would be, no. And he laughed and he said, that's how a partner feels about our vendor. In order for us to feel successful, we have to have mutual investment in each other, communication, trust, transparency, just like a life partner. And so I believe that there's a lot of amazing people at SonicWall from Bob Van Kirk, our CEO down throughout the entire organization, all of the salespeople, engineers, RPMs and marketing team who work really tirelessly to support, enable, grow our partners and also listen and learn. We call it outside in listening. And I think that's really a very core value. I never called it that per se, but that's truly what it is saying. What works, what can we do better and how do we keep innovating our people, our products, our technology through acquisition, through organically, through all of these different motions that keep our customers safe and protected, that give our partners peace of mind and allow us to get more profitable and elevate together.

Den:

Awesome, awesome. Yeah. So in preparation for today's session, I listened to, well watched a few podcasts that you guys were on fairly recently, and the one that struck me was a whole thing about platforms. And Jay, you were talking about from a platform perspective, you were talking about the difference or the evolution to a platform ecosystem and how in Vegas you've got the whole C-suite of a company and you're asking them questions about what it meant to them, and they've got a variety of different answers. Can you share what was 10 years ago like compared to now? What was that change?

Jay:

Yeah, the major change is this industry pretty much for 43 years has been pretty linear. You have a one or two tier model of partner, mostly a reseller, perhaps buying through a distributor, and that's how you service your customer. Today in the entire industry, almost a $5 trillion industry, 73.2% of it goes indirectly. If you look at World Trade $105 trillion of world trade across 193 countries, 75% of it goes indirectly. So this whole point of where the cash registers are and then how do you support that point of sale is where we come from. Where we've come to is the average customer now, which by the end of the year, the average cyber buyer will be a millennial born. After 1982, they're going to buy seven layers of a solution to get them to zero trust or SSE or whatever model they're going towards. And they're going to include seven partners that surround them.

Six or seven of those partners are going to be non-transactional. They'll never collect the money at the point of sale, but they'll be very influential in the first 28 moments before that customer makes a decision around that point of sale to build that set stack, but to implement, to integrate, to manage, to do all the things every 30 days forever. So that's the new economy. There's 6,500 security ISVs participating, and we're rolling into a platform economy that we see today with hyperscalers, the big three. We see it in SAS companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow and Workday and Marketo and NetSuite, HubSpot, this economy, it drives Wall Street. These are the most valuable companies in the world, but in cybersecurity, customers are done with trying to find one of 6,000 tools and cobble them together and hope they work. They're trusting companies like SonicWall and others to come and say, we're going to have you manage all of these integrations. You're going to be managing a lot of the telemetry. You're going to be managing my approach to Zero Trust, and that's web security, that's MDR, that's all the hardware and software products that you bring to market, and we're going to have this as a degree of trust that orchestrates all of this. That's the platform, that's the definition of a platform is all these technology alliances, the business alliances, the service alliances, the customers, and having everyone participate in a team sport, which is now cybersecurity.

Den:

Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I translate this slightly to the point. I've spent 25 years in enterprise, so it was always big companies, and Michelle and I both done a stint at Cisco, but before Cisco, I was at Adobe for 20 years, and I just kept thinking that I go to a vendor and they're going to try and sell me on their suite. Back then it was called a suite. But really it's a platform. It's a bundle of things that someone's already predetermined will work for you, and you're going to try and implement that thing and provided the sonic Walls of the world or other companies have all these integrations really well put together. Whether they built the software or not, they could still sell you a platform of their technology integrated with other technologies. And I used to always say to people, I am sick and tired of vendors building these things, suites, platforms, whatever, thinking I'm going to buy all of it.

I'm never going to buy all of it. I'm only going to buy what I need to solve the problems I need. And you touched one thing, Jay, which was the number of security vendors. I mean, when you walk through RSA or Black Hat stuff, and these halls are full of vendors, and I don't know how many new AI startups in the example there are just in the security space, nevermind broader, but the reality is, is there's a lot of money being pumped into startups and new companies. And then I think from an acquisition perspective, there are companies like SonicWall that have the funds and the means to acquire smaller companies and then build out the areas that they think they require for their platform to be more whole. So that for me was a really interesting thing. Now for the Ms P security space specifically, Michelle, where do you see the biggest challenge? I mean, maybe with MSPs actually,

Michelle:

Absolutely. I double click on what you're just talking about as well, because this could be a blessing or a curse depending on the managed service provider. So globally, there's 83,000 approximately managed service providers that could grow or shrink depending on new ones forming and mergers and acquisitions that happen daily. But beyond that, you see that most of them are small and nimble shops, and these people wear a lot of hats. They have a lot of challenges and complexity. And to your point, I'd love to think everything they put in their stack is going to be Sonic Ball. We know that's not the case. We know that there's going to be other things that they're going to need to sell, manage, deploy, configure to help complete their stats. So for us to help them be successful, it's really just how do we make it easier to work with vendors like SonicWall or others?

How do we integrate with not only the places that they do with us, our platform, but throughout the ecosystem and making ourselves more, I'll call it ecosystem agnostic and giving them the ability to choice. So our managed security services with our friend Michael Crane, former founder of Solutions. Granted, we don't just work on sonic wall firewalls. We just recently integrated with Sophos. We're looking across the stack other places that our vendors can integrate in the cloud with Microsoft 365 or Google. We're looking at Cylance and Defender and SentinelOne, all of these other solutions that are not owned proprietary to SonicWall, but making it less complicated because these managed service providers, a lot of their customers are small and they don't know a Fortinet from a Rocky to a Sophos or a Sonic Wall. They just know that their partner is their trusted advisor and they're going to keep them up and running and hopefully safe and protected.

And that motion is what makes them the, let's call it Sherpa. In their journey. They're going to be their advisor, they're going to be their guide. And so the vendors that the partners work with, we have to be able to be flexible, to be easy for them to partner with. We need to not lock them down into some crazy contracts, which is something that we've implemented. So flexible consumption, billing and arrears, because that's how their customers are procuring. They don't have the means to do that. And then the other piece of that finally is market development funds. How do you co-brand and co-sell, co-innovate with vendors? Because a lot of partners are leaving money sitting on the table. I know it. Other vendors, we all talk about how there's MDF dollars that these partners get accrued, but they don't know how to utilize it to get more customers or grow their business. Don't leave the money sitting on the table. I would say that that's the biggest piece of the puzzle. Make sure that this is a two-way street. Our partnership truly should be a partnership that vendors are held accountable to help the partners grow the way they need to.

Den:

Yeah, no, that's awesome. And the MDF thing, the only thing I kind of knew was wood and I would build cabinets and stuff with MDF, but I guess what you're referring to is there are, and I learned this on my journey with you guys, which was at Sonic. Well, there's partners can have go to market together strategies. There can be things where we'll put dollars in and they'll put dollars in and really help that partner get to promote how they're working with Sonic Wall. And I found that not new news I guess, but I love to see the passion that was going into that, into those conversations. And I did do that little travel around Europe with some of the executives, Michael being one of them. And other than being stuck at an airport baggage claim for three hours, they lost our luggage. Michael and I had a lot of good time to catch up. I was really fascinated by his story, having being an SP or an MSSP and now part of SonicWall and the ability for him to really relate with the partners in that ecosystem because he had been one. And I think what was really cool about that is having somebody on the executive team who knows what it's like to be a customer of a company like SonicWall, because that really brings a really good perspective. I was also taken aback by the number of MSPs we spoke with that really lacked security expertise.

I mean, I think that was one thing. And I could see Sonic Wall trying to make efforts to help raise awareness, help bring that level up, engage from a security perspective, which I think is if you get 14,000 MSPs or more and a huge 80%, I think were really small and they don't have security in-house expertise. That was the thing for me that a light bulb went off in my head, which is, holy shit, that's a huge opportunity. I mean, it's something for me that was just mind boggling because they're operating in a security space. And I think in two things. One is good companies like SonicWall have made it easy for people to deploy their technology in a secure way. But I think the more you integrate and the more that you bring other technologies in, and Jay, you mentioned this about that whole ecosystem, then you're going to need some more security expertise. Jay, in the analyst world, you guys are always looking at the data. You're always looking at what's next. So what do you see around the corner? I mean, where do you see the next 12 months going in this space?

Jay:

Yeah, let me bridge your last question with data. So if I'm an MSP, I could be a small, medium, large size MSP. And if you take a data-driven, look at your world, here's the way it looks. That world economy I started with is growing at 2.9. The tech industry of the $5 trillion is growing at 6.2. So you're already in an industry that's doubling the world's growth. You're the fastest growing industry, you're in the right place. Well, let's double click on that. Cybersecurity is growing by 10. That would be SonicWalls Tams growth. But managed services itself are growing at 12. So you're already crossing an intersection of managed services and managed security that's growing double what the tech industry is. And now if I go into manage security, some of that MSSP zone that's growing at 15, it's 14.9, it keeps going from there. So if I go and have the Michael Conversation Solutions, granted that's growing at 49% this year.

Den:

If

Jay:

I go to remediation, it's growing at 145. So I've just taken from a world economy right down to where I should be focused in the next 12 months, what skills, education development, what competency should I be building, what m and a should I be considering everything revolves around numbers. If I can be in a market that's growing at 49% while the world's growing at three, while my tech industry is growing at six, that's a phenomenal way to become a multimillionaire, perhaps to become a billionaire, which this industry is creating at this point. That's the economic value of being able to hire people, being able to change people's lives, being able to really use data to drive where your behaviors are going to go. So that's kind of what the analyst will bring to the table is say, I think I hear this. I was at an airport once collecting my luggage, and I think I heard this and I think I heard that. Let's bring the receipts and show what the world is happening. And when we start talking in the trillions of dollars and billions of dollars, there is a story that walks it down to an eight person MSP. Wow.

Den:

Yeah. Now, so for me personally, we started 9 0 9 Cyber the sister company to the podcast with a gut feeling. Michelle will tell you, I'm useless with numbers and my attention to detail sometimes stinks. But I just have this innate feeling that the industry, I mean, we always knew the cyber industry was huge, but I just really, it was evident to me that the MSP space, when it comes to cybersecurity, there's a unique opportunity and you just throw out numbers like trillions and billions and millions and the Scottish kids, this guy here, he'd like some of that. And I look at this market like it's good if you can do it right, if you know how to engage. And the thing that Michelle and I bonded on a lot was how we engage with people. How you treat people I think matters. I mean, this is a customer service industry.

And at the end of the day, our ability to engage with MSPs like Michelle and the team does at Sonic, well, that is vital to our success because it's a relationships game and it's a trust game. And the other thing you guys mentioned earlier was about MSPs deploying technology. I don't think their customers really give a crap what's under the hood. So they do trust the MSPs and the MSP's guidance. And I think for SonicWall or for us at Nine, nine Cyber, our ability to say, look, here's the package that you should put together given your unique situation, given where you are at on your journey, that's vitally important that we have the expertise and the talent to do so. I did remember that, Michelle. We'll meet you where you're at on your journey.

Michelle:

Yeah. Well, and I wanted to double click on something you said because it reminds me of our conversations, if you don't mind, which was, I spent 14 years at Cisco as well, and I think I was only at two different stints. The only time I wasn't there, you were there. So we missed each other unfortunately. But I'm glad we can become friends in this life. But I do believe that looking at managed service providers, it's the education opportunity that you mentioned especially, and because you've been a 20 to 30 year practitioner as a and procuring technology, and then moving to Banyan and understanding that like we're seeing 80% of the threats that are happening from cyber criminals are happening in the cloud. And so when you think about VTNA and CSB and swag and private and public access, internet security, that's largely an enterprise security idea.

It's not as common yet in a lot of the managed service providers and managed service security providers that I talk to on the road. And so I think that there's a huge opportunity, and to your friends at Banyan who you were working with before the acquisition as well, to understand the importance and urgency of where cyber attacks are happening. How do you understand, protect and prevent and the layers of security because it's not justi firewall. I think that's the first thing I do. I do a cloud bubble at a lot of events. They say, what's the first one you think of when you think of SonicWall firewall? Second word, Dell. We haven't been owned by Dell for eight years, but that's okay. We're changing that narrative, right? Understanding that SonicWalls made very strategic acquisitions in managed security services, in cloud security services, in our product portfolio, in our own platform so that we can help at all layers of that security for our customers. But a huge piece of that is the evolution, not only of SonicWall and our team and our engineers and our solutions architects and product teams, but it also for our partners because they also need to evolve and adapt and understand where these layers of security are needed, where the threats are happening, how do they protect and prevent at all levels, both with us and with others as needed. And I think that your education, what you're going to be able to provide, then it's extremely invaluable for a lot of the people who need it most.

Den:

That's why we call it defense in depth, really, because it's not just one vendor. It's not just one thing, and it's not just one threat or attack we're under. So guys, I know your time is precious. It is always great to talk to you guys and hang out and stuff. One part and word of wisdom for the MSPs, what would it be?

Jay:

Yeah, for me, understand that we talked about this team sport. One thing that you said is a little bit backward looking, not forward looking. The modern buyer, which is the majority buyer by the end of this year, is okay with a seven layer stack. And they're very much okay with not at all be in one company. They're okay with one company competing for all seven layers. They're also okay by patching together seven best of breed solutions and orchestrating that. The second part of this single throat to choke, they're okay with whatever's under the hood, not exactly true anymore. They want to double click and they want to know from every part of the security solution, from email to data, to web to application to cloud, all the layers. I want to know who you chose and I want to meet those folks too. So there's a high likelihood that SonicWall is going to be invited in the room not to compete with a partner, but to join the team.

Again, team sport, getting away from this single throat to choke or that trusted advisor to understanding you're going to put players on the field and each player is going to do their role and do their job, and we're going to go win the game. So this is a different environment, and this is one of the changes over the platform, understanding that there's seven layers over there, there's seven partners over here, and there's a complexity of pulling all that together. And the customer's actually okay with that as long as they're given access to this information and given access to that ability to orchestrate all of this to the betterment of their outcome.

Den:

Awesome. Awesome. Michelle.

Michelle:

So well, I'll counter, I don't think we're moving away from a trusted advisor. I think this is relationship based. At the end of the day, I feel like there's a lot of things that can drive a successful partnership, but relationships are most important. I think it's paramount. Without it, you fail. But that's what you get from somebody who's built a relationship and emotion and somebody who's more metrics driven and numbers related.

Den:

And I'll play the marriage guidance counselor. I'll say that I agree with both of you. I think it depends on the players of the game on whether they want one throat to choke and just be naive and happy with whatever. But I do see, I'll just say more mature people who have been in the industry longer, they actually prefer best of breed providing the integrations are solid. And I think then what comes down to is integration platforms, abstraction, layers and panes of glass that can help bring it together. I think that's where those people need to live.

Michelle:

So

Den:

Guys,

Michelle:

Click on what you just called it. So Chandra, who, you know, our vp, e VP of product at Sowell calls it our mosaic pane of glass, which I like, right? Because it's not pane of glass. It's all of those textures that come together and let's call it not a trusted advisor, let's call it your board of directors, who's guiding you, who's advising you, who's asking you, and holding you accountable ly. I think that's the most important piece. If I was to look like my advice, just also to piggyback, I would say two things. One, I'm really excited about the SonicWall state of the threat report that we put out. We put it out annually midyear, you and I have read all of the giant Verizon ones and the enterprise ones that are 50, 60, 90 pages long. This is very small. It's 10 pages. It's very tactical.

We have 218 countries and territories around the world that have sensors for 33 years. We get a lot of good data. In addition to that, we have our SOC with Michael that is now in US for 18 years plus. We now opened a sock in AMEA recently. So getting all of that intel plus the Banyan security. So this would be one of the first places I would say is just real tactical SMB focused knowledge about the cyber attacks. One thing we talk about in our breakout sessions is when do you think most attacks are happening? And people say, guesses. And the answer is Sunday morning at 3:00 AM if you're not working at Sunday morning at 3:00 AM which you shouldn't be, then you probably need a 24 7, 365. So you can use ours, use somebody else's, but you have to consider having one because that's when the criminals are doing it.

They're not waiting for your Monday to five, Monday through Friday. And then the other piece of that is just looking at where are the attacks coming from? So I always say magnitude a Canadian, so Wayne Gretzky, are you skating to where the puck is going? Looking at cybersecurity, we know that this is not looking. When I started at Cisco with chassis 65 0 9 switches and giant server rooms, how many people are working remotely now? How many people are hybrid commuting now? How many people are telecommuting working from Starbucks and planes and airports and anywhere in the world? Bali, for example, if you're Den Jones.

And so when you get through that, you have the ability to say, okay, our world is in a different place. The buyer is a different buyer than it might've been. How they choose to communicate, how criminals are getting more stealthy. And then just evaluating all of those future looking trends. You mentioned AI a few times, obviously the buzzword drinking game of 2024. What does that mean? How can they use it in their business? How can they use it for their partners? And I'm going to end with just my favorite favorite, which is DE and I and women in technology, there's not enough of us. It's in decline. You need more of it. So I highly encourage people to make sure that they have diversity of thought in their team, in their building of product, in their engineering, in their supporting of their customers, because our world is a very diverse world, and your company should reflect that as well to be successful.

Den:

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate your time. Love to speak again in the future. We could continue this conversation forever, but I know we all have places to be and people to see. So thanks everybody, and thanks for listening to the show this week. Take care. Thank you. Thank you.

Narator:

Thanks for listening to Cyber 9 0 9. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't miss an episode of Your Source for Wit and Wisdom in cybersecurity.

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