The Cannata Report
Burning Questions Video Series Transcripts
Ep. 2 of 6: Security
Launch Date: September 17, 2019
Exclusively presented by Clover Imaging Group
Today’s Burning Question is actually a two-part question: How serious should I take security, and how can I make money selling security?
Scott Cullen: Security is one of the hottest trends and topics in our industry today. It’s a hot topic with every business; it”™s a hot topic in our personal lives. There was a 2017 study commissioned by Malwarebytes that found that 22% of small businesses that were impacted by a ransomware attack went out of business. Other small businesses have lost anywhere from 25 to 100 hours of productivity because their systems were down.
Who better than a channel that specializes in selling and servicing small businesses to address their security concerns?
CJ Cannata: Security is much more than a trend or just another option and to underscore that point in our 2018 Annual Dealer Survey last year, 32% of dealers indicated security as an opportunity for growth.
Security is not an option, it”s an obligation. Security also gives you a new clear value proposition to bring to your clients to help you penetrate laterally and more vertically into that account as well as helping you to establish new accounts.
Virtually every supplier, every vendor in this industry that works with dealers is emphasizing security whether it is an OEM, a software company, an aftermarket provider – you name it – security is a major concern. [One of the best ways] to understand the opportunity of security and how dealers can specifically make money is to look at what your peers or dealer peers are doing in that space.
SC: Take Marco in St Cloud Minnesota for example. They’ve seen their IT security offering evolve from managed firewalls to multi factor authentication, event correlation management, device monitoring and patch management. Interest is also being driven by emerging industry standards and regulatory changes”“think the financial industry, healthcare and energy markets. Vertical markets”“dealers understand those fairly well.
CJ: Dealers love the recurring revenue model and that model jives particularly well with security offerings in the managed services segment. Now, under the recurring revenue model, pricing is often based on a per user basis because that”™s the model that is easier for your consumers or dealer customers to understand, track, manage, as well as maintain, and of course it’s also easier for the dealer to do it that way as well.
SC: Let”s not overlook physical security either. Like data and network security this could be considered another managed services offering. Here we’re talking about access control systems, security alarms and surveillance cameras, all of these products hang on to a network. They also represent a natural extension to a dealership’s existing managed network services offering, and a viable diversification opportunity as well.
By combining physical security and its managed network services offerings, Perry ProTech has found a formula for success. The dealership experienced consistent double-digit revenue growth in profits a little higher than that ever since it began offering physical security about five years ago.
CJ: Certainly one of the things that any dealer can do is talk to your OEMs, talk to your software partners. Ask them about security.
SC: Whether you’re talking IT security, data security or physical security, if you don’t address your customer’s security concerns, someone else will.
And if you’d like to learn more about security and go a little deeper than what we have just been sharing with you, go to www.thecannatareport.com. Back in February we had our very first security themed issue – there are a lot of security-oriented stories there that will provide you with a lot of information.
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Click below (and above as applicable) to view “Burning Questions” video series episodes and episode transcripts launched to date:
Ep. 1: Diversification (Video)
Ep. 1: Diversification (Transcript)
Ep. 2: Security (Video)
Ep. 2: Security (Transcript)
NEW: Ep. 3: Dealer of the Future (Video Only)
