Blue Technologies Delivers Enterprise-Class Security Services to SMB Clients in Germany

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Münster, Germany, Blue Technologies is an MSSP specializing in serving small to mid-sized enterprise customers. Many of its Germany-based customers typically have distributed sites with locations in over 40 countries, making network security management a core requirement. Blue Technologies was one of Forcepoint’s first German partners to offer hosted IT services that include Forcepoint NGFW protections and VPN capabilities, as well as secure cloud services attached to Microsoft Azure. Over the years, Blue Technologies has earned a reputation for being a trusted technology advisor that goes the extra mile for its customers, which makes it a standout among regional IT solutions providers and resellers.

“Our philosophy of service is simple: we put the customer first, which distinguishes us from competitors in the German market,” said Dirk Webbeler, CEO of Blue Technologies. “Customers appreciate that we make their problem our problem. They also like the fact they always know where the data is physically stored. They don’t receive this level of transparency from the major cloud providers.”

Early on, Blue Technologies was actually a classic IT reseller, offering network security from multiple vendors along with client, server, and storage solutions. The global recession in 2008 led Blue Technologies to reposition itself as a managed hosting company, and its private cloud services make up nearly half of overall revenue today. In 2018, Blue Technologies decided it was smart business to focus its network security service on delivering Forcepoint NGFW. By then, Forcepoint NGFW had consistently earned accolades and top product ratings from security analysts. Blue Technologies also felt Forcepoint made it easier to do business, packaging more flexible services, contracts, and commission rates that fit better with the company’s cloud service subscription model.

“The Forcepoint Security Management console allows us to control every single policy, which enables us to deliver bulletproof security globally and fast.”
 - Dirk Webbeler, CEO of Blue Technologies

Blue Technologies and Forcepoint simplify management of network security

Simplicity at scale was key to fueling Blue Technologies' growth, and this approach helped the company become a top Forcepoint partner in Germany. Counting universities, public agencies, the automotive industry, and defense contractors among its growing portfolio of customers, Blue Technologies hosts NGFW and acts like a security operations center (SOC) for its end-user base. One of its most popular solutions is an anti-ransomware offering that integrates Forcepoint NGFW and endpoint protection with other products to provide end-to-end data protection. The combination helps the team stop ransomware threats and even recover critical data prior to malicious encryption.

“Blue Technologies’ focus is taking pain away from our clients,” said Webbeler. “As the data and security specialists, we partner with Forcepoint to automate manual steps and make everything related to NGFW as painless as possible for our joint customers.” Enabling the set up and easy configuration of NGFW worldwide is Forcepoint’s Security Management Center (SMC). The SMC allows the service provider to monitor and configure all the NGFW network security services that Blue Technologies manages for its German customers, which can have dozens of sites under their enterprise umbrella.

“We have Germany-based Forcepoint NGFW customers with branches in more than a dozen countries including Mexico, Brazil and China,” said Webbler. “In the past, other security vendors we worked with allowed too many ad hoc exceptions to policies that made it difficult to manage distributed enterprises centrally. Not with Forcepoint. The Forcepoint SMC console allows us to control every single policy, which enables us to deliver bulletproof security globally and fast. In fact, during one maintenance window, Blue Technologies was able to update all the NGFW configurations and policies to 30 locations in an hour.”

“Our philosophy of service is simple: we put the customer first, which distinguishes us from competitors in the German market.”
 - Dirk Webbeler

Better together for customer satisfaction and partner growth

In two short years, Forcepoint has helped Blue Technologies build on its excellent reputation for exceeding customer expectations. As a Forcepoint MSSP, Blue Technologies makes dedicated, certified experts available to customers so the clients can focus 24/7 on their business initiatives.

Blue Technologies reps and their Forcepoint counterparts team up in key areas like sales support, sales calls, training and certification, and aftercare services. These solutions and services include:

• Sales, integration, and deployment of complete IT desktopserver- networking solutions
• Hosted server capacity
• Hosted storage
• Hosted NGFW security and VPN
• Additional hosted cloud services
• Tailored services and all-around “carefree” service packages
  • Cloud computing and hosting services, incl. hosted NGFW services, endpoint, and cloud security
  • IT strategy consulting
  • Ongoing MSP and MSSP services, incl. Help Desk and expert support

“We’re experiencing phenomenal growth because customers like our ability to bundle best-of-breed products and services and take pain points away from them,” concluded Webbeler. “Managing security for geographically dispersed enterprises is hard, but Forcepoint makes it easy for our customers. The local team is a great group to partner with because the company has truly opened up new doors, helping us win new business that we wouldn’t have won without Forcepoint.”

“Managing security for geographically dispersed enterprises is hard, but Forcepoint makes it easy for our customers. The local team is a great group to partner with because the company has truly opened up new doors, helping us win new business that we wouldn’t have won without Forcepoint.”
 - Dirk Webbeler