As we approach the end of our first full year as a standalone company, we also just concluded the first Sales Kick-Off (SKO) as the new McAfee. I am happy to report that the initial excitement of the spin-off is still going strong and we are looking forward to the coming year. My takeaways from the 2018 SKO are four things that will make McAfee our customers’ number one security vendor: Our Partners, Our Solutions, Our Team, and Our Culture.
OUR PARTNERS
Our partnerships are built on an understanding of long term mutual growth. We have focused on having lasting relationships with the highest quality partners out there. In return for the commitment from our partners, the North America Channel has worked to increase McAfee Market Share through six objectives:
- Become our top partners’ number one security vendor
- Competitive displacements in net-new logo accounts
- Develop joint go-to-market channel program with Cisco because of our recent integration announcements
- Redistribute the channel marketing budget on stronger ROI generating activities
- Improve partner sponsored briefings
- Expand channel support of alternative routes to market
I won’t get into the details of each of these goals here on my blog, but we are actively engaged and making it happen in 2018. I’ll talk about this further on the February 21st webcast for McAfee Partners. If you’re a partner with us, please register here.
OUR SOLUTIONS
2018 is the year for McAfee solutions. We’ve expanded our OpenDXL reach through ground-breaking SIA integrations with Cisco, acquired the leader in CASB, and migrated customers to ENS 10.5, unlocking a fully integrated ecosystem. McAfee paved a path throughout 2017 to make 2018 an incredible year for our products and solutions. Meanwhile, the growing MSP segment provides scalability to deliver McAfee powered solutions with high value managed services. We are on track to be the best device to cloud company on the market with strategic partnerships that wrap value added services around McAfee-powered solutions.
OUR TEAM
I hear it everywhere I go: This is a golden age of McAfee. All our players are in position. Our CEO, Chris Young, is committed to speeding up the pace; innovation and efficiency are at the forefront of every part of the company. We have a Channel and Sales management team with over 150 years of combined cybersecurity experience committed to giving our Channel team everything they need to achieve success. And finally, our Channel and Sales teams are dedicated to putting our partners at the core of every action, helping to ensure positive outcomes.
OUR CULTURE
Although always staples of the McAfee culture, there has been a strong push recently to guarantee all our employees are focused on ethics and values such as integrity, innovation, transparency, and agility. As a company, we emphasize inclusivity and candor to facilitate a better business as we engage with any challenges from a wide range of welcome perspectives. Together, these values enable us to play to win by ensuring we give our all to bring value to our partners and customers to create a safer online world.
The optimism from this year’s SKO is not illusory. While there will certainly be challenges to face in 2018, with these four important factors discussed in place, we can out-innovate our adversaries and competition.
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