Why backup vendor Acronis is going all in with security in A/NZ

Acronis’ new Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) general manager Kelly Johnson has inherited a big legacy, but now has to take it one step further.

In just four years, the traditional backup and disaster response vendor has built a partner community of 600 in A/NZ and 8,000 customers, becoming its fastest-growing market in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ).

Now, the long-term channel veteran is tasked with taking these partnerships to the next level as Acronis repositions itself as a full-service security and backup player.

Speaking to ARN about her move from Arrow to Acronis, Johnson said: “Acronis is on a really amazing journey in the security space, which is a passion of mine. I came across Acronis when I was at Ingram Micro. I love the technology. I love the people. I just thought this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

“My goal is to bring more exposure to Acronis in the market and show we’re not just a data protection company, we’re a security company. You cannot have one without the other. There are a lot of opportunities for MSPs to lean into a platform we have built for them.”

Founded in Singapore in 2003 and headquartered in Switzerland, Acronis has built a strong reputation – and 20,000-strong channel – off the back of its backup and disaster recovery (DR) solutions for consumers, businesses and managed service providers (MSP).

The latter is of key interest to Johnson, who is working with a “well-established” channel team in A/NZ that holds relationships with all of Acronis’ main partner accounts.

“My role is to bring the team together with the security messaging,” she said. “We’re really well-known as a data protection company, but the message is now about security. This is the message I’ll be shouting from the rooftops in A/NZ.”

A huge shift

Johnson’s appointment coincides with the launch of its newest product, Acronis Cyber Protect, which provides protection against cyber threats in addition to backup and recovery. 

This is underpinned by the vendor’s operations centres in the US, Switzerland and Singapore, which monitor threats and report issues to its service providers. Now set to manage detected and response services in the coming months, Acronis claims it will now provide an all-in-one security and backup solution that can be managed from a single platform.

Explaining the launch, Acronis chief sales officer Katya Ivanova said: “We decided to make this huge shift and we created this product from scratch. The idea is to have a platform that covers backup, data protection and security and all the tools service providers can use daily. 

“These include automated ticketing and billing. This makes us the only platform in the market that has all these solutions together.”

Other providers, she said, offer all these solutions but through integrations rather than one single platform.

“This also causes some of the issues with how much you spend on a product and how much you manage it,” she added. “Partners value that and we are growing very fast [in A/NZ] as a result.”

According to Johnson, this prevents end-users from having a “patchwork” of products that require multiple integrations.

“You may have other security vendors’ technology installed, but you might realise that you don’t need all that,” she said.

‘One of the best programs’

Since launching in A/NZ in 2018, Acronis has been steered by Pasha Ershow, Acronis SVP for APJ and Middle East and Africa (MEA) sales and global channel, and Neil Morarji, former local lead and current general manager for enterprise in Asia Pacific (APAC).

According to Ershow, the key to A/NZ’s rapid growth and its global reach of 20,000 partners has been its heavy engagement with multiple distributors. In fact, in every market, the vendor has several relationships with key distributor players.

In Australia, these are Crayon, Pax8, Leader and Synnex Australia, while in New Zealand, Acronis works with Dicker Data, Ingram Micro and Pax8.

Ershow explained that while simple licence and technology resales required vendors to simply “hedge their bets” on one or two distributors, the model is much more complex today.

“We believe that there’s no issue with having many distributors in a market,” said Ershow. “In the world of service providers, service is being provided every minute and every second with revenue being recurring. With service provision, it is very hard to change the distribution, as they are like a protected ecosystem. 

“With that in mind, [having multiple distributors] gives us access to those ecosystems.”

As a result of Acronis’ channel and distributor engagement over the last four years, A/NZ is now its fastest-growing market in APJ. 

“We believe the opportunities are big,” added Ershow. “Our penetration into the channel is not as deep as we could achieve over the next four years.”

Johnson believes she has her work cut out with Acronis’ global CyberFit Partner Program and describes it as “one of the best I’ve seen”, which is high praise after having worked for the likes of Ingram Micro, Eset and Arrow during a two-decade career.

“You have a dashboard; it tells you where you need to get certified or need to do more enablement or integration work,” she explained. “When the partners complete these, they earn points, which contribute to their standing and score; we can incentivise around these.”

Although CyberFit forms a global template, Johnson and Ershow have the liberty to create local incentives and offers in tandem with A/NZ distributors.

For now though, Johnson’s key priority will be to drive home the message that Acronis is not just the backup and DR vendor partners associate it to be.

“I really want to change the mindset here that Acronis is a cyber security company,” she said. “Along with that [comes] people turning on more functionalities in the product for their clients.

“We’re selling a solution. Other people are selling a product. It’s custom-designed for MSPs and we live in MSP land in A/NZ. It’s a great place for us to bring this messaging.”