Avast, a Gen Digital brand, is aiming to build even stronger ties with the channel community to help businesses stay safe and secure. Technology Reseller finds out more from Emily Winn, Head of Channel Sales North EMEA, and James Bevan, Channel Account Manager UK&I/Nordics
Gen Digital (Gen) is an award-winning cyber safety company with 500 million users worldwide but nothing like the name recognition of its world-famous brands like Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, CCleaner, ReputationDefender and, since April, MoneyLion.
Gen was created in 2022, when NortonLifeLock (the product of Norton brand owner Symantec’s acquisition of LifeLock in 2017) merged with Avast, which in 2016 had bought fellow anti-virus company AVG. Hence, Gen’s enviable brand portfolio.
Today, these brands offer a range of security, privacy, identity protection and financial wellness solutions to consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Broadly speaking, Norton focuses on consumers and business professionals/ sole traders, while Avast addresses the cybersecurity needs of SMBs.
In the UK and Ireland, Avast does this via a network of around 1,000 resellers and MSPs served and supported by three distribution partners – Westcoast, Avosec and Exertis.
Multi-layered security
Avast is best known for its award-winning antivirus software for mobile, PC, Mac and Linux, backed by an advanced, AI-powered threat detection network. But this is just part of the story, as it also provides patch management, cloud backup, remote management and, most recently, web content filtering as part of a multi-layered approach to security.
“Our new Web Control feature is category-based, not DNS-based, so it allows an MSP to lock down certain categories, e.g. pornography or gambling, and make sure end users don’t look at things they shouldn’t. It’s quite a nice feature because if the CEO wants staff to be able to access Facebook, say, during their lunch hours, it has a level of granularity which allows that,” explains Gen’s Channel Account Manager for the UK&I/Nordics, James Bevan.
He points out that Avast offers its solutions individually and in cost- effective bundles.
“We have a bundled solution called Avast Ultimate, which contains both patch management and antivirus features for a lower combined cost, as well as a VPN, USB protection, web filtering and
a ransomware shield. It’s not just an antivirus, it’s a full Endpoint Protection suite. Even though our antivirus is award- winning and best of breed, it’s important that people layer that security with additional functionality to keep themselves safe and secure.”
Avast Business Hub
Four years ago, Avast strengthened its B2B proposition with the introduction of Avast Business Hub, consolidating endpoint protection, patch management, backup & recovery and remote access and support solutions into an integrated platform that makes it easier to manage and protect devices, applications, data and networks.
“Avast Business Hub is a new kind of multi-tenant cloud platform that allows partners to manage and deploy the different services we offer through a single dashboard,” explains Bevan. “Obviously, we’re focused on channels, so we specifically have multi-tenanted dashboards where partners can view all their customers, but you could give access to a customer if they wanted to see that information themselves.
“One of the things we get pretty good feedback on from MSPs and partners is the level of reporting it provides. They can go in there and pull certain reports or schedule reports to go out to their customers, which helps to remind the customer what it is they are paying for. For example, patch management reports will show exactly what’s been patched. And all that reporting can be automated.”
Bevan describes Avast Business Hub as a straightforward alternative to remote monitoring and management platforms that allow an MSP to do almost everything under the sun, but which can be expensive and lock partners in with a commitment to spend X amount on X number of devices over X number of years.
“What we’ve tried to develop is a flexible solution with no minimum commitment and no minimum device counts. While it doesn’t have all the functionality of an RMM, it does give MSPs the ability to offer their managed service on a flexible basis and makes it as easy as possible for people to migrate to one single pane of truth across their antivirus and patch management and backup and remote control, thus helping them to gain control over sprawling technology stacks that might have 20 different services from 20 different providers and 20 panes of glass.”
In this context, Bevan highlights the Hub’s inclusion of a freemium remote control tool offering five 15-minute sessions per month, giving MSPs an alternative to Teamviewer or ScreenConnect, and a built-in API tool that they can use to move data from Avast into an existing PSA or RMM tool.
Monthly billing with Exertis
In April, Avast, in collaboration with Exertis, made its offering even more compelling by introducing a monthly billing option with no upfront fees as an alternative to pre- paid licences (for one, two or three years), which is traditionally how a reseller or VAR would acquire Avast solutions.
Emily Winn, Gen’s Head of Channel Sales North EMEA, expects monthly billing to be a popular option for MSPs and their customers, pointing out that organisations have become more budget-conscious since Covid and more reluctant to pay upfront for long-term commitments.
“Previously, people would buy three-year licences because they were modelled to be more cost-effective if you committed upfront, but we’ve seen a drop- off in numbers. There’s more business uncertainty now and this new monthly model aligns well with that sentiment. A lot of the support partners we work with have already moved across to it for their own customer billing.”
Winn adds that the combination of monthly billing and ease of use is a winning formula for the cost-conscious sectors in which Avast has traditionally done well, such as charities and not-for- profit, education and Government.
“We have always done very well in the charity sector where we have a long-standing partnership with Charity Digital. The education sector is also strong for us. While we have discontinued our education program where we gave away licences for free, we still do segment discounts for charities, schools and anyone else in education and for government customers to help them meet budget requirements,” she explains.
“Schools and charities, in particular, don’t have the internal knowledge or capabilities to manage more expensive or expansive solutions, so we have tried to develop a platform and a solution that allows them to roll out functionality as necessary and, as a business, to be super cost-effective for them too.”
Extending its reach
Having invested in its platform and enhanced flexibility for MSPs, Winn says that Avast is now looking to extend its reach within, and through, the channel.
“We’re looking to do that through our partnership with Exertis and their Flex platform and by developing a strong channel community. We’ve got a great internal sales team here in the UK, absolutely focused on partners. Avast does do business through its website, but our team doesn’t do any direct end user business at all. It’s all channel.
“Our aim this year is to double down on that to ensure more customers than ever can be protected when they’re online.”
Education, education, education
Clearly, channel partners have a vital role to play in achieving this aim, and to that end Winn is prioritising education of partners, to help them market and sell products and support packages, and to promote Avast as a solution to the security challenges faced by their customers.
“I was looking at the government cyber breach report for last year, which came out in April, and it stated that just 10% of charities and 10% of businesses in the UK are aware of the Cyber Essentials scheme and only 22% have any type of incident plan in place. This is a big indicator of how little understanding SMBs have about what they should be doing to protect themselves and the importance of educating partners so that they can do what needs to be done to keep SMBs protected and in line with Cyber Essentials. That’s where our platform can help, for example by having an antivirus in place, a password manager and making sure that applications are patched within 14 days.”
Winn adds that it’s not just a question of educating end user customers but also their supply chains.
“Just look at what happened with Harrods, M&S and the Co-op. Leveraging something like Cyber Essentials and the Avast solution so that organisations can maintain security across their operations and their supply chains is going to be super-important now, particularly in light of all the media attention these breaches have attracted.”
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