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Distributor Nextgen Group and cyber security vendor Palo Alto Networks have parted ways in New Zealand.
This follows the appointment of Ingram Micro, who join Westcon-Comstor as Palo Alto Networks distributors in New Zealand.
Nextgen New Zealand managing director Lynne Jeffery said that the decision to end the partnership was amicable and was made due to the size of the local market. The partnership began in 2021.
“Our decision was based on Palo Alto’s decision to appoint Ingram Micro across A/NZ as we don't believe NZ is a big enough market for three distributors” Jeffery told Reseller News.
“We view our decision as a positive one for both parties, as it allows Palo Alto the space to move forward with revamping their distribution landscape in NZ to align with their global strategy and enables Nextgen to focus on the continuing growth of our wider cyber security business in NZ.
“We have enjoyed working with the Palo Alto team for the last 18 months and we are both committed to finalise our current pipeline, finalise Palo Alto's end of financial year, conduct a professional handover, and honour all orders and delivery timeframes to minimise disruption to our partners and their customers."
Vasely Sapunov, Palo Alto’s NZ head of channel and commercial business, said its channel strategy continues to shift in line with changing customer requirements and market dynamics.
However, their focus on growth and expanded service creation, driving commercial initiatives and alignment and continued frictionless selling improvements remains the same.
"New Zealand is an important market and partners have and will continue to be critical to our success,” he said.
“As we transform and grow as a company, we must continue to assess our channel strategy in relation to global, market, customer, partner, and company dynamics.”
Palo Alto has seen recent success in the healthcare, education and governments sectors as New Zealand navigates a challenging economic climate and increasing cyber threat landscape, Supunov said, and plans to continue this momentum as a strategic focus “in FY24 and beyond”.
“We would like to thank Lynne and the team at Nextgen for their support and partnership over the past 18 months," he added.
