SonicWall drops Arrows ECS in Ireland

SonicWall has cut Arrow ECS from its distributor line-up in Ireland, CPI has learned, as it looks to grow beyond its roots as a firewall vendor.

The US cybersecurity vendor's new Ireland country manager, Tristan Bateup, told CPI that SonicWall no longer sees Arrow ECS as a good fit to upsell its wider portfolio.

"We've worked with Arrow for a number of years. We had a very good relationship with them. But I think we felt that as our portfolio was changing, the focus around our wider portfolio was going to come from other distributors," he said.

Bateup added that SonicWall is keen to bolster its market share outside its primary firewall offering. Around 80 to 85 per cent of the vendor's current revenues in Ireland currently stem from selling firewalls, he claims.

"It usually starts with the firewall conversation. But I think what's different now is because our portfolio has grown, we're now looking at other areas of that customer network. So okay, we're doing your firewall, but what are you doing around wireless? What are you doing around switching? Is this a network refresh? Is it you replacing switches? Can we have a conversation around that?"

Bateman was promoted internally to country manager of Ireland at the start of February; also the start of SonicWall's financial year.

He said a new distribution strategy was drawn up for Ireland at around that time.

Arrow ECS was given notice at the start of the June, he said, in order to tell partners that as of 30 June Arrow ECS would no longer be able to sell SonicWall.

Exertis and Tech Data now remain as SonicWall's sole distributors in the Irish market.

According to Bateup, SonicWall sees both as able to give "a more specialised approach" to the vendor's portfolio.

"It comes back to that conversation of we're not just a firewall vendor anymore," he said.

"We've got a number of other areas of technology that we want to be promoting. For that we need additional resources in distribution, whether that's an expanded sales team within distribution, whether it's a technical resource within distribution that could focus in on our technology, and we felt those two distributors would offer us more value long-term around that."

SonicWall has confirmed the decision only applies to its Ireland operations.

CPI contacted Arrow ECS for comment, but we were still awaiting a response at the time of publication.

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• Topics
• Vendor
• Arrow ECS
• Ireland
• distribution