Netskope launches Catalyst program: Facilitate, secure and get out of the way

In chemistry, a catalyst speeds up a reaction without getting tangled up in it. That's not a bad description of what a managed service provider (MSP) wants from its vendor partners: help accelerate performance with suitable products, then step back and let the MSP get on with building value for customers.

That's according to Kristin Carnes, Netskope's vice president of global channel programs and strategy, who said MSPs are a different breed from the traditional reseller. "If you're going to be successful with the MSP, you really need to enable them with a seamless experience that lets them focus on serving customers," she said. "They have their customers, they know what they're doing, and they need to be enabled and empowered with the technology provided by their vendors."

Checking more than a box

Netskope, the Santa Clara-headquartered secure access service edge (SASE) specialist, has had an MSP programme before, but Carnes is refreshingly candid that it just wasn't cutting it. "We had launched an original programme back around 2022, but it wasn't particularly well thought through. As a consequence, it wasn't highly operationalised, and it wasn't working as well as it could for our partners."

This is what drove the design of Netskope's Catalyst MSP/SP Program which launched in June alongside a new tool, Netskope Partner Orchestrator. Catalyst has three tiers, Foundation, Ascent and Summit, set by the partner's annual revenue commitment, which in turn determines the discounts on offer through a dedicated MSP price book.

Reflecting on the necessary two way commitment street on which successful partnerships ride, Carnes explained that NetSkope "Wanted to hold partners accountable on the one hand, and then give them all of the tools needed for success on the other. The premise is that if the MSP wants to be in the programme, it depends on performance. And performance requires enablement and opportunity from us, and then accountability to Netskope as a vendor."

There's a recognised challenge in the channel which could be described as 'vendor exhaustion'. Too many vendors, too little focus, and a pile of programmes signed up for and promptly forgotten.

Vendors know it, and partners know it, too. Eliminating friction and driving up convenience hits the sweet spot, explained Carnes, when MSPs can provide solutions their customers want and need, with reduced overhead and admin.

Fifteen minutes to protected

The core value proposition in this new program is the orchestrator, which handles provisioning as a first move. "Your tenant and entitlements show up and you can provision them to customers within 15 minutes," said Carnes. "So it creates a wonderful customer experience that moves straight from Proof of Value to delivered and protected in an instant."

Multi-tenancy lets the MSP apply policies across all customers with ease, while flexibility is catered for with licence portability. "Once MSPs acquire a certain amount of licences on behalf of their customers, they have the flexibility to allocate and reallocate them between customers as required, which provides added value for the acquired licenses," she said.

More is on the way. From the first week of November, partners will be able to run proof of value (POV) trials inside the orchestrator and convert them straight to deployed solutions that establish revenue flows.

The point, said Carnes, is clear: a system that works more like an MSP does, and which removes friction and hassle in managing security services.

Translating security into revenue is the name of the game; analyst firm Omdia expects the global managed security market to reach US$106 billion in 2026, growth of 14.4%, with cybersecurity product sales through MSPs up 15%. Gartner predicts that 50% of new SASE deployments will be based on a single-vendor platform by 2028, up from 30% in 2025.

Which is precisely the pitch. "We can offer our entire SASE solution and the software can all be managed from within the orchestrator."

Enthusiastic adoption of Orchestrator and Catalyst

Closer to home, she said around 10 partners across Australia and New Zealand are already using the orchestrator. The biggest users are Macquarie Telecom and Macquarie Government, part of a pre-launch beta. "They had pent up demand," Carnes said. "They have a number of customers they're already targeting to bring our solution in."

And, she confirms, feedback from the now more than 100 partners which have signed up for Catalyst is overwhelmingly positive. "It's fair to say we learned what not to do with the first effort," a cheerful Carnes smiled. "Now, we've got every confidence that we've delivered a program that works for our MSP partners by aligning with how they do business."