Coro Keeps it Simple
A simple platform and simple new partner program are key elements in the security vendor’s plan to add a lot more MSPs to its channel.
Coro, like ConnectWise, is a big believer in the tight bond between simplicity and success.
“Most of our partners out there, whether they’re hybrids that are still doing resale plus services or full-blown MSPs, want simple,” says Joe Sykora, who became the security vendor’s senior vice president and general manager for the Americas in March.
Coro’s platform, which combines 15 security technologies (including, since May, security awareness training) on one interface, is the core of the company’s strategy for giving them simple. Most MSPs assemble and integrate a security stack themselves, explains Sykora (pictured above), a 29-year industry veteran with senior-level stints at Fortinet, Bitdefender, and Proofpoint under his belt. Coro does that work for them.
“We just make it simple,” he says.
There’s presumably at least some connection between that simplicity and the 2,670% growth Coro says it’s recorded across the last three years, along with its position toward the top of Deloitte’s latest Technology Fast 500 list. Sykora, like his EMEA counterpart Piers Morgan, is responsible for sustaining that momentum by scaling the vendor’s roughly 1,000-member channel rapidly.
“There are eighty to a hundred thousand MSPs globally out there today, and we’ve barely touched many,” Sykora notes. “We are definitely out to recruit new partners.”
The partner program Coro rolled out last month is an important step in that process. Called Compass, it replaces a predecessor that Sykora calls “a little complex.” Compass, by contrast, has simple rules and just two tiers, one for active and engaged partners and another for everyone else.
“I don’t get into the four- and five-tier precious metal type stuff,” Sykora observes.
Compass has a deeper MDF budget and more marketing resources than the program it replaces too, he adds, and stronger deal registration benefits, including a one-time 15% upfront discount.
“It’s one of the highest in the industry, because I want to give all of our partners predictability with their margins,” Sykora explains.
Other changes Sykora has implemented since joining Coro include rebuilding the channel organization around dedicated territory managers backed by account management, inside sales, and sales engineering teams, as well as eliminating direct sales to end users.
“We are 100% channel,” Sykora says.
The distribution partnerships Coro will soon announce, a first for the company, are another element in the vendor’s campaign to establish itself as the leader among single-company, single-platform security vendors like Cynet, Guardz, and Judy Security.
“There is no clearly defined go-to in the space,” Sykora says. “That’s really one of the reasons why I was brought in, to help create that awareness.”