There’s no doubt that cybersecurity is a very technical field. We work to secure computers and other connected devices, and industry jargon often sounds and reads like a foreign language. However, at the end of the day our goal is ultimately to secure people—not machines—from online threats. Although cybersecurity is a technical industry, we’re very people-focused—especially at Armor.
In today’s installment of “A Day in the Life at Armor,” we’ll look at the day-to-day of Thomas Scott to learn more about how his role at Armor contributes to the security and service we provide our customers.
What is your job title and what does it entail?
I’m the Team Lead of Solutions Consulting in the Americas. My title means I am responsible for delivering high-quality technical guidance to Armor’s customers in regard to compliance, cloud security, and risk mitigation within my sales region, as well as ensuring that all Solutions Consultants in North America provide that same level of knowledge to their regions.
What does your day-to-day look like?
It is essential that Armor’s Sales Force is helping provide customers with the right solution to solve their problems. What I do day-to-day can take a variety of forms:
For our potential customers moving to the cloud, it might be a conversation on how best to securely architect their environment while also applying the necessary security controls. Oftentimes, customers are not aware of what exactly they need, so it is my job to ensure they are provided the appropriate solution that gives them the technological capabilities needed without breaking the bank.
For customers looking to achieve compliance within their infrastructure environment, it is deciphering what they want to accomplish and architecting an appropriate environment within Armor Complete. This requires an understanding of compliance frameworks and the requirements within, as well as a broad grasp of all technical components necessary to satisfy those compliance needs.
Serving as a technical resource for our sellers is a vital part of my day-to-day job. Our marketing and sales enablement teams provide phenomenal training materials for our sellers. However, it is always valuable for our sellers to have a resource on hand that can provide real-world context for what they are attempting to sell. This will give them a leg up in understanding our potential client’s pain points.
What one word would you use to describe your job, and why?
Dynamic.
There is no one word to describe what we as solutions consultants do. We are continually required to understand what and how our sellers are taught to sell, and how each seller adds their own touch to the conversation with clients. Each conversation with a customer requires that we are not only familiar with how and what the seller will say, but we must also ensure that their message is 100% in line with what our product and engineering teams are capable of delivering and supporting.
What pain points do a lot of your customers have?
The most pervasive issue our customers have is either a lack of knowledge of the public cloud, or a fear of it. The sense of security that can be provided by knowing that your servers are sitting underneath your building in a cold, dark server room that your company owns can be a big mental hurdle to overcome. To many, the public cloud is still a scary endeavor that poses more risk than reward in the customer’s eyes.
How do you address those pain points?
To many customers, moving to the public cloud is not a necessary option. Based on the way their environment is architected, continuing with their existing infrastructure is a viable solution. However, if I can understand how their environment is configured and what problems they would like to address by moving to the public cloud, I can utilize my experience and expertise to help assuage their fears.
The public cloud is not inherently insecure. However, the learning curve is simply a new journey that must be taken to ensure that a migration to the public cloud is done with security first and foremost. This journey can be made significantly less stressful if Armor and our Channel Partners are leveraged to assist in that journey.
What are some pain points in your day-to-day? And how do you address and overcome them?
Continued education and knowing what new developments are coming, from both within the company and industry, such as:
- What new battle cards has our marketing team created for our sellers to use?
- What new features have been implemented as a result of an Engineering Sprint being completed?
- What new service has AWS released/updated in the last week?
Information Technology is ever-changing. Keeping up with the most recent trends and capabilities of the technology stacks that our customers are or could be using is vital to success in my day-to-day job function. If I don’t know or understand the problems my customers are facing, how can I properly provide guidance to them?
How is your role evolving as the threat landscape and/or cloud landscape evolves?
I am being called upon more and more to be a “cloud expert.” This phrase has always made me laugh because it is essentially impossible to achieve. In AWS alone, there were 10K+ service updates in 2018, with significantly more than that to come in 2019. I can become an “expert” in 3-5 services at any given time, but it quickly becomes an overwhelming task to stay on top of.
The easiest and best way to stay in front of this evolution is to be honest. No one can reasonably expect me to know everything about our industry. Demonstrating the ability to be honest and say “I don’t know” helps to build trust that you have a client’s best interest in mind. Getting them the correct answer is more important than getting an immediate answer.
Where do you see the industry 5 years from now?
IT is not going to make some astronomical leap to quantum computers and blockchain. Much like many on-premise data centers still running Windows 2003, much of our industry will remain the same. There will be new, fantastic features and tools available. However, the adoption rate of these tools is a slow burn. We will still be doing much of the same security work we are doing today. However, what will separate the successful companies from the stagnant ones is their willingness to try new things without fear of the unknown or uncertain.
Stay tuned for more insights to come from our Armor professionals working diligently to understand client needs and secure customer environments in order to protect the people trusting them.