MINNEAPOLIS — March 17, 2023—Fortra, a global cybersecurity software and services provider, today announced the winners of its 2022 Partner Awards. Now in its fifth year, the awards recognize the partners who go above and beyond in their contribution to growth and Fortra customer success. Fortra’s channel partner network spans the globe and plays a vital role in helping the company improve customers’ cybersecurity maturity and manage their ever-changing threat landscape.

In 2022, Fortra launched a new channel program and rebranded from HelpSystems to Fortra.

“2022 was a significant year for our channel program, and our awards honor those partners who embraced the Fortra vision and successfully leveraged our comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio to generate a strong performance in 2022,” said Renee Ritter, Vice President, Channel at Fortra. “We’re delighted to recognize our partners’ excellent achievements and celebrate those who worked passionately to support our customers’ success. We look forward to further strengthening our partnerships in 2023.”

BlueFinch-ESBD winners of the 2022 Partner Awards

“We are delighted to receive this award in recognition of the work accomplished by our team in partnership with your partner managers,” said Jacques BESNARD, President of BlueFinch-ESBD. “All this is happening in a year full of changes, including the merger of BlueFinch and ESBD, which should allow us to reach new heights in 2023.”

The entire team is grateful and honored for this award.  This is a partnership of excellence that has lasted for over 10 years!

Let’s go for the next award!

About Fortra

Fortra is a cybersecurity company like no other. We’re creating a simpler, stronger future for our customers. Our trusted experts and portfolio of integrated, scalable solutions bring balance and control to organizations around the world. We’re the positive changemakers and your relentless ally to provide peace of mind through every step of your cybersecurity journey. 

“The cybersecurity industry is always changing, and we’re evolving along with it,” said Kate Bolseth, CEO, Fortra. “This is a pivotal, exciting moment for us as we’re defining a new, bold path forward that will bring positive change to the industry and our customers. Everyone at Fortra is rallying behind this movement to tackle seemingly unmanageable security challenges and alleviate the constant worry many of our customers face. As Fortra, we want our customers to think of us as their cybersecurity ally, with them every step of the way.”

In recent years, Fortra has grown to more than 3,000 employees with offices in 18 countries and over 30,000 global customers. As part of this evolution, the company shifted its focus to cybersecurity and automation, building a best-in-class portfolio with key capabilities in data security, infrastructure protection, and managed security services. These acquisitions have included Alert Logic, Digital Guardian, Cobalt Strike, Tripwire, Digital Defense, Terranova Security, Agari, PhishLabs, Core Security, GoAnywhere, Titus, and other well-known software and services providers.

Such a rich collection of proven solutions has built the organization’s roster of industry experts and enabled innovative integrations to help customers solve challenges in new, streamlined ways. These integrations incorporate emerging threat intelligence for more effective protection against rapidly evolving cyberthreats. In fact, Fortra’s 350-person threat research and intelligence team stays abreast of emerging threats not only to guide customers in their defense efforts, but also to infuse its software and services with critical insights.

“We’re proud of our role as a trusted leader in the industry and will continue to give our customers the same people-first support and best-in-class solution portfolio they’ve come to expect, making cybersecurity stronger and simpler than ever before,” Bolseth said.

When you’re doing the same job and already know each other well, why not join forces? This is what the heads of ESBD (France), Blackbridge (Italy), BlueFinch (Netherlands) and Systematik (Germany) said to each other at the end of 2019. “We have been in regular contact for some time now, and the idea of creating a new structure together became clear in December,” explains Richard Verkaik, CEO of BlueFinch and BBES Group. “The aim is to create a major player in Europe with currently over 500 clients in 16 countries. Thanks to our new synergies, we will be able to improve our purchasing, sales, marketing and technical support.”

Headquarters at Schiphol

BBES Group is headquartered at Schiphol, Amsterdam International Airport, while the various founding entities of the group will initially retain their offices and customer base. “However, in our dealings with some international companies, it may be worthwhile to let BBES deal with the customer centrally, to have more leverage,” says Bernhard Battran, CEO of Systematik and BBES Group. “Our business – data protection – is becoming increasingly international. Some projects involve working with several countries and, in this case, having a larger number of multilingual employees can be valuable.”

Still considering itself as an investment in a niche sector, BBES Group is today one of the most important European players in the sector. “This should enable us to increase our customer base, firstly in Europe and, why not in a second phase, outside Europe,” says Richard Verkaik. “Having said that, we will first need to structure this new collaboration, particularly in terms of technical support, sales organisation, etc.”

Numerous benefits for the customer

If the interest of this alliance for the different companies is clear, what about the customers? “The customers will benefit from our expanded scope because, as integrators, we will have more clout than solution vendors”, says Jacques Besnard, CEO of ESBD. “Given the number of customers we serve, vendors will have a vested interest in being more attentive to our requests. In addition, in terms of price, we will also be able, for the same reason, to obtain prices that are more competitive for our customers than if they had to request their product directly from the vendor.”

Each of the four companies forming BBES has its own expertise in very different industries. This common know-how will enable us to advise many different industries on the best solutions to secure their data.

Covid-19 tailwinds

It is quite remarkable to note that Covid has not dampened the motivation of these four companies to work together. Planned for December, the project well and truly materialized in the first months of the year 2020. “Obviously, we had to review the way we had planned to meet, admits Marco Volpe, CEO of Blackbridge. Our recent meetings that were planned in Milan were organised online. But that didn’t stop the project from succeeding.”

Jacques Besnard even sees an opportunity in this delicate period. “While we have always thought that remote working was an obstacle, it is now clear that it is possible to collaborate in this way. But it is more crucial than ever to enable people in all sectors to both work remotely and share data securely. So our role has also become more important. “That’s the key to BBES Group’s success!”

Discover BBES Group website