THE BACKGROUND

Founded in 2016, cybersecurity provider Optec has quickly established itself as a specialist in the provision of end-to- end solutions, growing rapidly and increasing its presence to multiple locations throughout the UK.

Optec became a Fortinet Engage Partner shortly after its launch, enabling it to provide a wider range of cybersecurity solutions and services such as; network security, wireless solutions, SD-WAN, and endpoint security solutions.

Increased success followed quickly until Optec recognized that, to support its expansion still further, the company needed to diversify its offering into other areas. Identifying that the need for data security and networking is at the forefront of every business’ IT requirement, Optec concluded that the natural fit to cybersecurity was data backup and storage.

THE IT SOLUTION

Assured Data Protection’s market leading managed service solutions with Rubrik’s cloud data management was the first choice for Optec. Rubrik creates a seamless integration with any database and encompasses; backup, archival, instant recovery, and compliance, as well as replication and copy data management, all handled securely both on-premises and in the cloud.

Stuart Harper, Director of Optec, takes up the story: “Rubrik is a best-of-breed product; it’s a cutting-edge disruptive technology, which is perfect for us. By asking our customers if they’ve thought about backup, we’re selling the technology In a way that many businesses haven’t thought about.”

The TRUSTED PARTNER

Optec quickly realized, however, that there was also benefit in working with Assured for their technical expertise and experience with Rubrik.

Stuart explained: “There was absolutely no point in scaling our business up to install Rubrik because ourselves as Assured already do that to a much higher level than we could ever do. Our customers feel comfortable with our expertise in security networking but, when it comes to backup and disaster recovery, Assured has this in place already. There’s no point recreating the wheel!”

Optec identified a reoccurring revenue model it could build on that would provide the necessary stability to grow a lot quicker and, rather than offering customers a turnkey solution, decided to become a reseller.

“Assured Data Protection offers us the perfect partnership,” continued Stuart. “We can basically resell their solutions and know that every month we’ve got that revenue and margin coming in. It’s a nice business model which fits into what we do without putting extra strain on our engineers who specialize in security.”

The SUPPORT

Optec opted for full reseller support so its customers could take advantage of Assured’s world-class technical advice service, when necessary.

“From a company director’s point of view, our team doesn’t want to have to deal with the technicalities of making things work. If something goes wrong, we just want it sorted and we can be confident that Assured knows Rubrik inside and out. As they have will have already seen any issues our customers could potentially have, they can fix things really quickly,” explained Stuart.

The support solution offered by Assured allows Optec to add value to their customer services offering and act like a seamless extension to the company’s team.

Stuart has also seen commercial benefits: “It’s an amazing support package. We can pretty much go into any deal confidently knowing that, if there’s other competition, we can win it either technically or commercially, depending on what’s required.”

The RELATIONSHIP

By becoming a trusted partner, Optec receives comprehensive support from Assured’s sales and marketing teams. It has also been able to take advantage of Assured’s expanding portfolio such as Threat Detection as a Service, which helps customers to identify potential threats to their data.

“Assured’s portfolio of solutions slots in nicely with our messaging,” commented Stuart. “It organically feeds into what we do and is a logical progression and expansion. It makes our conversation with the customers better, our offering bigger, and it makes us experts in more areas.”

“We are very optimistic about the future,” concluded Stuart. “Quite simply, the channel model Assured has put together is brilliant. We’re basically inviting Assured into our customer base and selling their products. We build a relationship with our customers, Assured respects that and rewards us for it as well.”

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