Advantage is a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) based in New Zealand, which provides cybersecurity services to businesses of all sizes with an emphasis on local expertise and compliance. With over 70 employees, it offers a wide range of managed security solutions including threat detection, incident response, vulnerability management, and continuous monitoring. Founded in 1986, the company has empowered hundreds of customers across Oceania, spearheading cybersecurity in sectors including finance, healthcare, retail, and government.
Advantage initially focused on PC manufacturing and retail, and moved into the cybersecurity services business in 2018 to address a significant market gap. New Zealand is a relatively small cybersecurity sector, and the vast majority of companies need MSSPs that can provide cost-effective cybersecurity through highly qualified talent, while they focus on core business activities. Advantage set sights on this market and secured a partnership with an endpoint product manufacturer to deliver threat detection, incident response, and other related services to companies of all sizes.
However, when its previous partner changed ownership, Advantage began the search for a new end-point security services provider. Its previous partner could no longer keep up with the company’s rapid growth in a cost-effective way. This prompted Advantage to seek out a product that could perform at the highest level. The company was looking for a provider with a collaborative team that could foster a unique partnership, delivering the best solutions for their clients while unlocking their growth.
Finding the Perfect Match
Losing its partner brought Advantage several challenges. Critically, the company needed to find a provider capable of evolving its products fast to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats. This agility was essential not only to protect Advantage’s client base but also to maintain trust and avoid the significant business costs caused by outdated or vulnerable systems. AI-driven technology would fit this criteria, allowing for the proactive detection of anomalous behaviors and anticipation of potential vulnerabilities.
Another challenge Advantage faced was the need to start and build a solid relationship with a provider from scratch. This entailed rapidly establishing trust, open collaboration, and workflows, and aligning on strategic goals and support standards with a partner willing to invest time and resources in understanding the New Zealand market and its regulatory landscape, as well as the demand for scalable, cost-effective solutions.
The new provider also had to align with Advantage’s client-first approach, offering responsive and collaborative support that would enhance its abilities to deliver managed services without interruption. By selecting a provider with these capabilities, Advantage could reinforce its position as a reliable MSSP, ensuring that its clients could remain focused on their core business operations with confidence that their cybersecurity was in expert hands.
Consolidation with Minimal Effort
Advantage deployed SentinelOne solutions across its client portfolio and soon started seeing significant benefits. With SentinelOne Complete, Pearpoint and his team could consolidate all endpoint monitoring activities, offering comprehensive protection against sophisticated threats. Advantage could reduce the burden on its security operations center (SOC) with automated response and remediation, leading to lower operational costs and higher efficiency. “With SentinelOne, we cover five times as many endpoints as we did four years ago but have only marginally increased the team,” Pearpoint explains.
Another SentinelOne solution that enabled Advantage’s growth is Purple AI. The solution allows the MSSP to offer proactive threat hunting and intelligence-driven responses, utilizing artificial intelligence to detect suspicious activities and potential threats across all client’s networks. Purple AI helps the company identify threats before they escalate, enhancing service quality by protecting clients proactively rather than reactively.
By automating previously manual tasks and providing advanced threat insights, Advantage has reduced labor and training costs. This reduction leads to a leaner, more agile operation, allowing the company to allocate more resources towards business-oriented activities such as customer acquisition and service innovation. “I can easily partner an inexperienced junior engineer with Purple AI and deliver the same results that would previously have needed a mid-level or senior engineer,” adds Pearpoint.
“SentinelOne solutions have also become a core part of our incident response tool pack,” Pearpoint says. As a SentinelOne Instant Response (IR) partner, Advantage can deploy on-demand to an entire environment within an hour. “We quickly map out the breach and isolate the issue while the rest of the network continues functioning normally. The result is often a happy new customer signing on with Advantage after a positive experience during a crisis.”
Leveraging a Strong Collaboration
Pearpoint says that the human factor has played a critical role in the success of Advantage’s partnership with SentinelOne. “As our partner, SentinelOne’s collaborative approach quickly helped us foster a partnership built on mutual respect and optimize our resources,” Pearpoint says. “We’ve had an amazing relationship with the entire team, and they’ve set the gold standard for all partnerships we want to have with all our vendors. No other partner has been able to match the level of engagement and collaboration.”
After years of working together, Advantage has grown its revenue five-fold since 2019. This success is grounded on the consolidation the company has achieved through SentinelOne solutions, the constantly-evolving products that stay attuned with the market’s requirements, the strategic approach to delivering cost-effective solutions to clients, and the synergy between the teams. “As partners, our vision has always aligned with SentinelOne. They are constantly looking to fill the gaps in the cybersecurity market and are consistently on top of the technology game,” concludes Pearpoint.
