Island takes considered approach to channel expansion

Browser security player Island has embarked on a partner-first strategy, extending its support and relationships with UK partners.

The security player is currently working with a couple of players, such as Softcat and Saepio, and is looking towards channel expansion.

James Savory, regional vice-president of UK&I at Island, said the business had taken the decision to work with the channel but wanted to build its base carefully to ensure it could deliver a true partnership to those that signed up with the vendor.

“We like to focus in and work on a couple of key partners. Someone said the other day, ‘If everyone’s a partner, then no one’s a partner’,” he said.

Savory added that investment in the channel was increasing and that the company had been looking at increasing its relationships with system integrators to get its technology incorporated into the stacks they offer customers.

“Resellers, VAs, SIs, MSPs – all of them have the ability to work with us, and we work with them across the across the board,” he said. “We’re investing heavily into the channel at the moment. It’s a real area of focus for us. We started at the beginning, with the channel-first strategy.”

Island offers its own browser offering that protects users as they surf the web, as well as compatible extensions with all the main options.

“If we make that browser a collaborative part of their estate, we can allow users to go with more freedom to utilise SaaS [software-as-a-service] and web-based applications,” said Savory. “Our growth has been exponential, and that’s because we’ve really redesigned the workspace.”

Savoury said the firm was well positioned thanks to the focus on user experience increasing, along with the pressure on IT departments to enable staff to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools without increasing risk also rising.

“For the channel, being able to go and have a conversation about enablement is a business-outcome conversation,” said Savory. “It’s not a, ‘I’m just going to sell you. I’m here for a SASE [secure access service edge] solution’. For a channel that is trying to innovate at the moment, there is a great conversation to [be had] for the safe adoption of AI.”

“They’re being asked, ‘How do we adopt AI safely? How do we get away from this business saying no?’ We’re talking to them, saying, ‘Look, we present the perfect opportunity here to say absolutely adopt it at speed’,” said Savory.

He added that it was particularly around AI where Island’s partners had already seen growing interest from its customer base, and that momentum was going to continue to rise as users adopt more tools across their organisations.

“Our convergence in time and space with artificial intelligence adoption has really been timely, because a lot of security teams and IT teams are saying, ‘How do we do what the board wants and the CEO wants, which is allowing people to adopt at scale, while still have assurance over making sure that we’re not losing that critical data?’,” said Savory.