Palo Alto Networks Channel Manager Explains Why AI and Platforming Go Hand in Hand

When it comes to AI, “you can’t have products from different vendors and expect to be able to fully exploit AI,” Michael Khoury of Palo Alto Networks told CRN.

Palo Alto Networks expects to “rely more on partners” to deliver its broad cybersecurity platform in the coming years, as the company also focuses on greater use of GenAI-based security , Palo Alto Networks channel chief Michael Khoury told CRN.

Khoury, who joined the cybersecurity giant in August 2024 after most recently serving as head of partnership strategy at ServiceNow, said in an interview that his team is preparing an overhaul of Palo Alto Networks’ channels program that will make debut early next year. financial year next August.

The major focus of the next program update – and in the months leading up to it – will continue to be on enabling partners around Palo Alto Networks’ “platformization” strategy, Khoury said.

For a little less than a year, the company announcement an aggressive new growth strategy aimed at accelerating the consolidation of tools across its cybersecurity platform, which covers network, cloud, application and security operations security.

Khoury, whose title is vice president of ecosystem partners at Palo Alto Networks, highlighted the “faster growth” the vendor is seeing in “next-gen” areas beyond its core security business. fire – indicating what the company is looking to focus on. partners.

At the same time, as AI has quickly become a top priority for many organizations, Palo Alto Networks is looking to show how its suite of GenAI-based capabilities actually go hand-in-hand with the platform, he said.

When it comes to AI, “you can’t have products from different vendors and expect to be able to take full advantage of AI,” Khoury said. “So I think the whole conversation around leveraging AI requires more thinking around a platform strategy – one that aligns with the security of one vendor rather than several different vendors.”

Ultimately, “I see a bigger opportunity for a company like Palo Alto” in this environment, he said.

Prior to ServiceNow and Palo Alto Networks, Khoury spent 14 years at Cisco, including as head of partner profitability during his final four years at the company.

Regarding Palo Alto Networks’ planned program update, Khoury said it’s clear that “we have a very strong foundation in our programming.”

“However, we definitely need to evolve to where we want to go,” he said.

The following is an edited portion of CRN’s interview with Khoury.

What have you focused on during your first months in this role?

I spent my first 30-60 days attending a lot of meetings and doing a lot of listening. Before committing to a change, you want to meet not only with internal team members, but also with partners. So I contacted some partners and listened to them as well. And I can say that so far I’m very happy. We have a very strong foundation in our programs. However, we absolutely must evolve to where we want to go.

Obviously, you hear about our future direction in our earnings announcements – where (CEO) Nikesh (Arora) and (CFO) Dipak (Golechha) talk about recurring revenue, our platform strategy and next-generation security. We want our ecosystem to help us move in this direction. So I focused on evaluating our programs, evaluating what we have.

I focused on the requirements: what are we asking partners to do? – and I focused on looking at our incentives and benefits and what we offer in return. The foundation is there, but certainly these buttons – these requirements and benefits buttons – we absolutely need to move them in the direction we want to go that supports our company strategy around the entire platform. -form, not just one-off products, and not just on the firewall side. Obviously, that’s where we’re coming from from a cybersecurity perspective. But if you look at all of this growth and where we’re going, we’re moving more toward the next-generation security side of the house.

When I meet with partners and listen to them, they love Palo Alto, they love the product, they love the technology. They love all the benefits it brings them. So now my job is honestly easier because the product is solid and they like what we have. The rest for me is about making sure we’re building the program as the right vehicle to support our go-to-market strategy.

In terms of allowing partners to focus on the platform, how do you plan to encourage that?

If we look at our growth, it shows in our profits. You can see that we are growing at a faster rate on the next generation product side. Incentive is always important, but what is also important is training and enablement. You can’t expect an ecosystem to learn something new and be able to execute on it – both from a sales and go-to-market perspective, as well as delivery and support (perspective) – without giving him the appropriate training and clearances. So I’m going to focus on the program overall. I want to make sure that we provide the vehicle for them, from a training, enablement and support (perspective) perspective, for them to be successful. We will pay more attention and importance to it.

The program has two levers: the incentive is one lever, but the requirements are also another lever. We are therefore considering adjusting both levers. We look at requirements, incentives and how we support, train and enable them. That’s what my team is working on, and that’s really where I expect us to launch some of these changes at the start of our new fiscal year (in August). The reason we’re looking at the new fiscal year is, frankly, because some of the changes that we need to make as part of this evolution require us to build those capabilities. You can’t just make a change without showing the ecosystem how well they’re doing, how they can access these benefits, how they can access the training. We therefore need our own IT organization to develop the capabilities necessary for these changes. And we need to give them some time to do that.

Are there certain product segments that are experiencing particularly strong growth and demand from partners? And how does the evolution of AI take place?

When I look at the growth and trajectory of Cortex and (Prisma) Cloud, I see that a lot of that focus is really there. (Prisma) SASE is an important area for us and a big advantage. Even our global SIs realize this. In the past, their role was to enable me to buy best in class from different suppliers, bring it together and integrate it for the customer. This in a nutshell is how an SI thought. But now we’re moving to this model where we’re truly a platform that provides end-to-end security. And if you really want to leverage features like a (Security Operations Center), a single dashboard, managing all of these threats, it’s not as easy to do that anymore with point products from different vendors. So I think they’re looking at Palo Alto and saying, “This platform strategy has value.” And yes, every company after Palo said, “Oh, we have a platform too.” ” But if you really dig into it and look at their solution, it doesn’t cover the same area and technology spectrum as Palo’s. So we think this whole point product model is integrated, and that’s the solution, I think it’s moving more towards a managed service. So we see more and more attention being paid to this area.

(Regarding AI) you can’t have products from different vendors and expect to be able to take full advantage of AI. So I think the whole conversation around leveraging AI requires more thinking around a platform strategy – one that aligns with the security of one vendor rather than several different vendors. I’m excited about it. I see a bigger opportunity for a company like Palo Alto (in this environment).

What general message are you currently sending to partners about what you plan to do next with them?

If you’re not focused on next-gen security, you should definitely take a look. Because you will be rewarded more, you will be more recognized and your value will be further amplified within Palo Alto and with customers. That’s number 1. Number 2, if you can invest more in delivery and provide some delivery capacity, I think that’s a big deal. Because we’re seeing a lot of demand – and frankly, Palo Alto wants partners to provide more of this service. We are not going to add more people to (remove) delivery to partners. We will rely on partners to carry out these implementations. So I would say to partners, if you want something that is margin-rich and has big opportunities – and if you have that foundation around implementation – I would say, double down and follow us on that. point-gen security (travel). The market is there and we are going to rely more on partners (in these areas).

Also, definitely keep that focus across the entire platform, so our customers can realize the (full) value of what they’re getting. And it can also reduce threats. You can definitely help customers if you do more on the platform instead of just one-off products.