Outbound Group Partners with WatchGuard to Deliver Resilient Cybersecurity Services to Their Clients
Introduction
The Outbound Group has been long established and has continued to evolve and grow significantly over the last few years. The company was founded by IT professionals and respected technologists with experience in manufacturing, financial services, and various other sectors.
The company’s vision is to be a trusted security advisor and an extension of clients’ IT departments. It provides tailored, menu-driven services ranging from full (virtual) IT department support to specific roles like virtual CISO provision.
Outbound’s customer-centricity, driven by many of its experienced staff coming from enterprise corporate IT teams, serves clients across a wide variety of sectors, including financial services, telecoms, manufacturing, non-profits, insurance, recruitment, and more. Outbound has a substantial reach, offering three pillars: value-added reselling, virtual services, and consultancy. Today, the company operates both throughout the UK and internationally.
The company strongly believes in helping guide clients through various journeys, such as digital transformation, cyber resilience, or whether that’s a journey off the Cloud or on to the Cloud. The name “Outbound” signifies this journey.
The Relationship with WatchGuard
Keith Bucknall, chief information technology officer (CITO) at Outbound, was familiar with Panda Security from his time as an end user in the corporate environment, before WatchGuard acquired the company. He highlighted that Panda Security was one of the early security vendors to deliver its products via the Cloud – something he felt was a very forward-thinking move at that time.
Having a single pane of glass for security patching, encryption, and software deployment was also highly advantageous.
The journey to delivering WatchGuard’s wider suite of products came from this existing knowledge and positive experience of working with Panda Security.
Today, Outbound delivers the full portfolio of WatchGuard products, primarily focusing on resilient security solutions that offer comprehensive protection through “a single pane of glass” management platform for multiple customers across a wide range of industry sectors. WatchGuard solutions include WatchGuard firewalls, endpoint security, secure Wi-Fi, and multi-factor authentication.
More recently, Outbound has added WatchGuard’s Managed Detection & Response (MDR) service into their portfolio to deliver 24/7 protection to their customers. Outbound is also one of the first UK partners to provide WatchGuard’s ThreatSync+ NDR, which provides enterprise-class Network Detection & Response without the complexity.
The company anticipates growth in Cloud-based technologies and sees the integration of WatchGuard’s solutions into its virtual services offering as a key factor in its expansion strategy. The adoption of these services is seen as a step towards more advanced, AI-based security decisions.
Gold Partner Status
Today, Outbound is a WatchGuard Gold certified partner, having completed both technical and sales certifications. “Strong relationships with our vendor partners are key to our success. We have a strong relationship with WatchGuard from account management to support, where we receive quick resolution to issues and excellent service levels. This partnership is crucial for Outbound, as it aligns with our goal of offering high-quality, resilient technology solutions to our clients,” said Bucknall.
Bucknall added, “We are positioning ourselves as a trusted adviser to our customers. Therefore, we need trusted and strategic partnerships with our vendors – not just on the solution and the technology, but also on the relationship and the whole ecosystem value chain, which is exactly what we receive with WatchGuard.”
He also praised the WatchGuard management platform. Initially, Outbound used multiple platforms, but consolidating to WatchGuard has saved significant support time and improved efficiency. This consolidation aligns with Outbound’s strategy of streamlining operations and enhancing service delivery.
“The stable and supportive relationship with WatchGuard is crucial for Outbound, helping us to build long-term customer relationships and deliver on our promise of delivering trusted advisory services,” said Bucknall.
From an end user customer perspective, Outbound has been working with WatchGuard on their cyber resilience customer event series, designed to educate the audience on emerging cyber threats and best-practice advice to mitigate risks.
The partnership with WatchGuard has positioned Outbound well for future growth, and they are looking forward to continuing to work with WatchGuard to ensure their continual innovation and technology developments.