Cybersecurity vendor Query.AI launches partner program to support 100% channel Go-to-Market model

Query.AI, which provides centralized insights from decentralized data to make cybersecurity investigations more efficient, has a strong integrated Go-to-Market motion with partners, and is looking to add a few more.

Rob Anderson, Query.AI’s vice president of sales

Query.AI,  which makes what they term a unique security investigations control plane for modern enterprises, has launched their Query.AI Partner Alliance Program. The company sells through a 100% channel model, and is looking to add a small number of new partners, particularly as they expand internationally. That includes bringing on their first Canadian rep in about 30 days.

So what exactly is a security control plane for modern enterprises?

“Customers face several challenges today and one of those is the sprawl of data,” said Rob Anderson, Query.AI’s vice president of sales. It’s on-prem in a SIEM. It’s in multiple SaaS services. It’s in storage repositories in the public cloud. The challenge for customers is to get scope and reach across all this data effectively, to improve confidence in an investigation.”

The Query.AI security investigations platform enables this by helping manage data no matter where it resides, and providing a federated search capability to conduct security investigations across cybersecurity technologies.

“It lets customers comply with privacy laws and rules like GDPR and CCPA, and it also reduces the time down to seconds for investigations,” Anderson said. “They can query across data siloes, and normalize everything back in an analyst browser so they can do investigation in a single pane of glass, and effectively manage data across the data sprawl.”

The market for this is strongest among large enterprises, but it’s not the company’s only market.

“Larger enterprises feel the pain much faster, but we have a lot of mid-tier customers in small and medium enterprises and the larger midmarket,” Anderson indicated. “So the sweet spot is really the small to medium enterprise up. If a customer doesn’t have any analysts, they aren’t a big fit for us.”

Query.AI works with what it terms a select group of partners, sells through them exclusively through a 100% channel model, and works with them tightly to go to market and develop sales motion synergies.

“I’m a channel bigot, and built this this way from Day One,” Anderson said. “We will only sell through partners. My channel model involves aligning with them at a management-to-management level, and fully understanding where we plug into each other’s model.”

It also involves having a relatively select channel.

“I don’t want to disappoint partners or have them disappoint us, so we are focusing on a select group, of strategic partners,” Anderson indicated. “Optiv is a natural partner for us, and we are looking for strong cybersecurity ecosystem providers versus box movers. We have five or six partners signed up now, and we are looking to add between five and ten partners. We have some international locations opening up, including Canada, where we will be bringing on a rep in about 30 days.”

Query.AI is also building out a strong alliance organization.

“We are still early stage with it as well,” Anderson said. “We’ve done five alliances in the last month and a half, and are working to tie together the alliances and the channel.”

The program is a horizontal, single tier one.

“We provide partners with gracious margins,” Anderson said. “While we do not tier by resources they commit, they do need to commit sales and SE resources to work opportunities with us.”

Query.AI also provides 24/7 technical support to partners to drive the highest possible service levels, as well as dedicated sales enablement resources.

“We have a plethora of sales resources, including onboarding, a dev environment, sales tools, battle cards, customer success stories and technical papers,” Anderson said. “We are working on our training program. We are working on a certification program as well, but it is still a few months out.”

Query.AI also uses the collaborative business plans they form with partners to provide co-marketing support.

“This is not MDF,” Anderson said. “It’s a quarterly field marketing budget, and we are aligning with them around where we spend the money.”