Growth Opportunities for Partners at Accelerate 2018
Fortinet is excited to be meeting with our partners at this year’s Accelerate conference, which promises to be the largest one yet. Around 2,000 thought leaders, IT and security experts, partners, and customers will convene in Las Vegas from February 26th – March 1st to attend keynotes and breakout sessions, network, and collaborate.
For our partners, the goal of this event is to provide you with new insights on how to leverage the Fortinet Security Fabric to grow your security practice, and thereby make it more profitable. There are several key trends that are driving the need for increased cybersecurity solutions across organizations, including digital transformation and growing regulations. With these changes impacting our customers, there is a wealth of opportunities for partners to leverage Fortinet products to ensure protection and compliance while driving business forward.
NSE Training
Before Accelerate begins, partners are invited to attend pre-conference NSE technical training sessions. Fortinet’s Network Security Expert Program is a certification program that addresses eight levels of network security proficiency. Certification gives partners the expertise in Fortinet’s security suite they need to accelerate sales, provide expert advice, and offer more services.
These training sessions and workshops offer partners the chance to enhance their security skillset with firewalls, Advanced Threat Protection, multi-cloud security, SD-WAN, and the FortiGate 7000 series. Pre-conference sessions are an additional $400. For further skill development, partners can attend hands-on workshops during the conference, and complete certifications at the NSE Program Pearson VUE testing center onsite at Accelerate. NSE technical sessions are an additional $200.
Partner Breakout Sessions
To help our partners realize the maximum potential of new opportunities, we have planned four partner-specific events at Accelerate to inform as well as drive growth and profitability.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
This breakout session will be held on Wednesday, February 28th from 1:30 -2:45 pm. The presentation will focus on the major infrastructure and process changes organizations will have to undergo to remain compliant with GDPR’s strict standards, and the opportunity that exists for partners to provide some of this infrastructure with Fortinet solutions.
The goal of GDPR is to give European consumers control over the use of their own data. However, these regulations do not only apply to organizations that operate within the EU. Rather, they apply to any organization that collects and processes data on EU citizens, regardless of their location. GDPR gives EU citizens the ability to request access to their data, as well as request its deletion. Thus, GDPR will require a high degree of network visibility into every instance of data storage and movement. Furthermore, GDPR requires adherence to data security by “design and default” and that organizations report qualifying breaches within 72 hours. For affected organizations, compliance is key, with penalty fines reaching €20 million or four percent of annual turnover, whichever is greater.
GDPR goes into effect on May 25th, 2018. However, a 2017 survey found that 75 percent of affected organizations are unprepared to meet compliance by this deadline. As partners assist their customers in preparing for this massive regulatory shift, Fortinet can be a valuable asset in providing data visibility and increased data protection. Join Fortinet’s Patrick Grillo as he guides partners through the “how” of preparing your customers for GDPR.
Steps to Achieving Increased Profitability and Operational Maturity
Accelerate is excited to be hosting Steve Lewis of Service Leadership, a leading consulting firm in the solutions provider space. He will be hosting a series of three partner-focused sessions on Thursday, February 27th.
Introduction to Best-in-Class Profitability, Partner Predominant Business Models© and Operational Maturity Levels
This first session will be held from 1:30-2:45. Partners will learn about Service Leadership’s Operational Maturity Level progression approach, which gives solution providers visibility into ways they can increase growth, profitability, and services. In this session, partners will learn how to assess economic drivers to accelerate sales and increase customer satisfaction.
Best-in-Class Partner Technology Standards and Optimal Customer Cross-Selling Methods
The second session in the Service Leadership series will follow from 3:15-4:30 pm. The focus will be on improving Operational Maturity Levels through two key tactics: setting technology standards, and cross-selling solutions. Solutions providers that have had success in these two areas have consistently been top performers in profitability, services, and continued growth. Attending this session will provide partners with immediate actions they can take to advance these two key performance drivers.
Best-in-Class Partner Value Creation Strategies and Solution and Service Offering Development Methods
This final Service Leadership-led session will occur from 4:45-6:00 pm. This session will provide our partners with actionable steps to be taken toward achieving long-term business goals by improving two Operational Maturity Level strategies: value creation and service offering development. This session will look at specific ways to approach these strategies to increase the likelihood of goal fulfillment.
These sessions will provide our partners with new strategies and actionable insights into how to best serve their clients while growing reach and profitability.
Final Thoughts
Fortinet is excited to host so many of our partners and to provide them with new opportunities, strategies, and insights into how to leverage Fortinet products to meet their customers’ goals, as well as their own. We hope to see you there!
Come share your ideas, discuss the future of cybersecurity, and learn from the best in industry at Accelerate 18. Register now.
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