Datapac awarded Sophos Irish Partner of the Year for 2014

Pictured: Michael Conway, Renaissance; Karen O’Connor, Datapac and Dermot Hayden, Sophos

Datapac, Ireland’s largest indigenous ICT solutions and services provider, has been awarded the title of Sophos ‘Irish Partner of the Year’ for 2014. Datapac was awarded the title for the second year in a row as it exceeded all of its targets, including more than quadrupling new business year-on-year.

Datapac won more than 100 new customer contracts in the past year for Sophos solutions and also secured a 25% increase in sales to existing customers. Working in partnership with Sophos, Datapac has increased sales revenues for IT security products and services by 134%. New customers added include SmartPly, C&D Providers, Kefron and Druid’s Glen, all of whom are using Sophos IT security solutions which have been architected, installed and supported by Datapac.

Dermot Hayden, Sophos country manager, Ireland commented, “Datapac has quadrupled net new business year-on-year.  This is being driven by the knowledge and commitment of its IT security and managed services teams, all of whom are highly accredited and have a deep understanding of both the business and IT security landscapes in Ireland.

“Due to this expertise, we have appointed Datapac as the Irish representative on our EMEA partner advisory council for FY2015. This council comes together regularly to discuss best practices, share security advice and provide strategic input into the Sophos product roadmap”.

This year’s Sophos Partner Awards were held at the Hilton London Metropole, as part of the Sophos EMEA Partner Conference 2014, and recognise significant achievements by partners during the most recent financial year.

Karen O’Connor, general manager service delivery, Datapac, said “It’s a great achievement for our team to win this award two years in a row. Together with Sophos, we take a very proactive approach to threat management, working closely with our customers to ensure they have the IT security products, policies and support appropriate to each of their businesses.

“We made a strategic decision to work closely with Sophos in the IT security space which has been fully rewarded. They are developing some really pioneering security products which are disrupting the network security market. We’re delighted to be able to bring these highly innovative products to our customer base in Ireland.”

Dermot Hayden continued, “Our partners play a valuable role in helping Sophos to build IT security platforms which are always several steps ahead of the latest threats. Datapac has become a very important partner, as not only are they helping us to grow sales significantly in the Irish market, but they also give us great insight into the evolving needs of Irish businesses.

“Too many organisations are still reactive when it comes to IT security. They often wait until the latest high profile security attack, such as Heartbleed, hits the news before taking action. We work closely with partners such as Datapac to promote a more proactive approach to threat management. If a business has Sophos unified threat management systems in place, alongside support from experts like Datapac, they can be confident of the highest levels of protection and support, regardless of the latest headline grabbing threats.”

Sophos is the only IT security company that’s a leader in each of the Gartner Magic Quadrants for unified threat management (UTM), mobile data protection and endpoint protection platforms.

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