Cato Debuts Revamped Channel Program: ‘Clear Pathway For Partners To Lean In’

The SASE provider is expanding to a two-tier program — adding a tier for ‘advanced’ partners — while aiming to offer more-targeted enablement and increased discounts, Cato Networks Global Channel Chief Karl Soderlund tells CRN.

Cato Networks is rolling out an overhauled channel program that adds a second tier that aims to help “advanced” partners to differentiate, while providing improved simplicity and profitability along with unique new specialization tracks, Cato Networks Global Channel Chief Karl Soderlund told CRN exclusively.

The revamped partner program comes as Cato — a major provider of SASE (secure access service edge) for enabling remote and distributed workforces — looks to expand its partner ranks and accelerate its growth with the channel, Soderlund said.

“There's been a constant drumbeat that I've heard from our partner community — and that is, ‘We love the technology. We need better direction on how to engage,’” he said in an interview. “What this [new program] is going to do is give a clear pathway for partners to lean in and engage with us in a simplistic format — but allow them to scale.”

The debut of the Cato Networks Channel First Partner Program also comes after the vendor disclosed achieving annual recurring revenue of $250 million as of the end of 2024, thanks to strong demand for its SASE platform, with ARR rising 46 percent from a year earlier, Cato Co-founder and CEO Shlomo Kramer told CRN previously.

Last year, Cato was also elevated into the “leaders” quadrant in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant ranking for single-vendor SASE platforms, up from its ranking in the “challengers” quadrant the year before.

Soderlund, who formerly helmed partner programs at Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks, was hired in February to succeed channel veteran Frank Rauch in the global channel chief role at Cato.

Focus On Simplicity

With Cato’s new partner program, major updates include a greater focus on simplicity with increased discounts — meant not only to improve partner profitability but also to reduce instances of non-standard pricing, making it easier and faster for deals to close, according to Soderlund.

Meanwhile, Cato has for the first time expanded to a two-tier program from its longtime single-tier approach, he said.

Cato now has a Starter tier and an Advanced tier, the latter of which is for partners that have “leaned in with enablement, that are providing incremental services, that are driving incremental bookings,” Soderlund said. The goal is for these deeply invested partners to be able to “differentiate from their peers.”

At Alchemy Technology Group, a Houston-based partner of Cato Networks, it’s clear with the new program that Cato is “doing all the right things when it comes to partnering,” said Lucas Marquardt, vice president of sales at the solution and service provider.

This includes the improvements around simplicity and making it straightforward for partners to understand how much money they’ll make with a given deal, Marquardt said.

“They're really trying to just make sure [the program] is simplistic overall, it's easy, and that they are very partner-forward and partner-driven,” he said. “What they're doing now, from a partner perspective, is just building out a robust partner landscape.”

On the technology front, meanwhile, Cato has stood out “one of the best engineering companies” in the security and networking space and has excelled at bringing together multiple capabilities into a unified SASE approach, according to Marquardt.

“It makes it easier for my reps when they can really get to understand one product, and understand it incredibly well — instead of having to learn 10 different products and piecemeal it together,” he said. Ultimately, “Cato has done a phenomenal job to build out a platform.”

Enablement And Onboarding

In terms of enablement within the new Cato channel program, the vendor is introducing new specialization tracks — which partners will be able to achieve based on whether they are a VAR, MSP, service provider, distributor or referral partner.

Rather than adding a layer of complexity as it might seem, this unique approach to specializations is “actually breaking things down and making it simple” for partners, Soderlund said.

“The majority of our partners fit within one of these categories,” he said. “It really allows them to understand and lean in on what's needed [in their specialization].”

Cato is also looking to drive faster onboarding with a “zero upfront financial commitment” approach, the company said.

This means that partners can avoid the “burdensome onboarding experience” that often entails three to six months of onboarding into a new vendor, according to Soderlund.

“We're just trying to make it as easy as possible for partners,” he said, “because we have the confidence that once they see this technology and how disruptive it is — and how much it's needed by our joint customer base — they’ll naturally want to invest more.”