Beachhead Solutions has launched its Women’s Empowerment Programme with the backing and rollout support from its on-the-ground regional distribution partner Cyber Retaliator Solutions (CRS).
BeachheadSecure for MSPs will be available with distinct advantages and benefits to any women-led-or-owned business seeking to become a Beachhead MSP, MSSP or IT security reseller in South Africa and across the continent.
The programme begins as data security compliance with South African Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) is now in full force.
The California-based maker of the BeachheadSecure platform recognised the need to assist women looking to enter the lucrative cyber security market, and to empower local businesses and female entrepreneurs to build new (or expand existing) revenue streams though MSP-related services in Africa.
The United Nations underscores women’s empowerment as an important development objective and highlights the relevance of gender equality to address a wide range of global challenges. This is further cited in the PwC report “16 nudges for more #WomenInTech.”
According to Amit Parbhucharan, Beachhead’s GM for the EMEA region: “There is a need to advance women in ICT, and even more so in the cyber security sector. We found that other initiatives focus largely on training, awareness, events, and the general promotion of women in the tech sector. We want to expand this narrative by bringing the region something purpose-built to be practical, tangible, and meaningfully increase income opportunities for women-led business, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs.
“Gender equality in the sector is also of importance and, as a country, we must strive to improve this situation. We believe with a programme like ours, we can help include this on the agenda of our partners, the channel, and the industry.”
Lavonne Prinsloo, MD of DLS Technologies and the first to sign up for the programme in South Africa, comments: “We applaud this initiative from Beachhead and CRS. What better way to help advance the skills and income potential than with a programme that doesn’t pay lip service to women empowerment, but strives to add real-value and real money to my small IT business?”
The Women’s Empowerment Programme includes several key elements to back businesses, including marketing support, credit support for micro-enterprises, and full technical support. Additionally, the programme provides product training and sales coaching not only for BeachheadSecure, but CRS also provides a free one-year learning access license for cyber security and POPIA awareness training through the same official CRS learning management system used throughout its national training centres.
Beachhead is bolstering the programme by giving out free licenses to help women-led businesses kickstart income opportunities: they can monetise those licenses for an immediate return, as well as receive not-for-resale licenses to ensure their own internal protection of computers and devices.
With phishing a critical vector for attacks, CRS will be further complementing the programme through its pan-African technology partnership with EC-Council and the Aware security tool. It aims to support businesses signed up to the programme in the particularly critical and current aspects of cyber security (including phishing, smshing, vishing) to advance skillsets and close the gaps of these threat vectors for their clients.
“Firstly, we are thrilled to be a part of this great initiative,” says Dylan Nel, head of vendor engagement at Cyber Retaliator Solutions. “Secondly, adding Beachhead’s easy-to-use platform, patented technology, and valuable functions to the stack is now of great importance for any MSP – and a decision that is not only smart, but something the market is demanding.
“This is especially true in South Africa, where legislation enforcement is legally requiring every business, organisation, and government in the country to adhere to strict security safeguards for the personal information they process and hold in their custody.
“If you can sell, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and are keen to learn and expand your business with an alternate stream recurring income opportunity, then this programme is for you.”
Parbhucharan adds: “Under this programme and through the use of the BeachheadSecure platform, the women-led-or-owned MSP can offer powerful and simple-to-orchestrate security measures to extend their portfolio with security-focused services.
“The BeachheadSecure platform will allow them to remotely (and automatically) encrypt, protect, and/or easily quarantine data on a range of their client’s user-devices whenever they become lost, stolen, or are otherwise compromised or unaccounted for. Additionally, BeachheadSecure provides the complete inventory, monitoring, alerting, and incident reporting capabilities required to ensure data on (or accessible from) any MSPs’ client devices remain effectively secured – and with one-button built-in documentation can prove it as well.”