What a week in the Nordics!
CloudGuard supported Microsoft Nordics on the SMB Security CSP Accelerate programme, a series of deep-dive events for in-country Microsoft partners focused entirely on SMB security.
Rather than launching anything new, the sessions were about accelerating partner understanding of the security capabilities already available, and how to get the most out of them.
Supporting Microsoft’s partners
Across three events at Microsoft offices, we supported the panels and breakout sessions, working interactively with a large number of Microsoft partners to help them connect Microsoft’s capabilities to what their SMB customers need day to day.
The panels were free-flow Q&A: partners brought the questions, and we answered them based on what we see every day helping SMBs strengthen their Microsoft security.
The conversations covered a lot of ground, from cyber risk and exposure reduction to agentic security, Microsoft ISOC, and how SOC automation keeps operations efficient as alert volumes keep rising.
What partners were asking about
Every session was shaped by the partners in the room, so the questions told us a lot about where SMB security is heading in the Nordics. Three themes kept coming back.
Purview takes centre stage
One topic came up more than any other: Microsoft Purview. Partners wanted to know how to strengthen data classification and data loss prevention across Purview and Sentinel, and how to turn those capabilities into real protection for their customers.
Securing AI and tackling shadow AI
Securing AI was the other big theme. As AI tools and agentic workflows spread through every organisation, shadow AI is becoming one of the biggest blind spots for SMBs, and partners were keen to understand how Microsoft is approaching the problem and what they can do about it today.
Getting more from Business Premium
Underpinning all of it was licensing. Most Nordic partners work with Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers, which has always been CloudGuard’s focal point in SMB security.
There’s a lot of protection already inside Business Premium, across Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Defender XDR, and with the right customisations and additional analytic rules, SMBs can accelerate posture, detection and protection natively.
From there, Defender Suite and Purview Suite take things further, with enhanced threat hunting, analytic rule customisation, data loss prevention and security for agentic workflows. It’s the same conversation we had with partners in Portugal, and Microsoft has asked us to bring it to somewhere we will reveal soon in November.
The capability is already there
The message across all three events was alluded to the same thing. The capability is already there. What SMBs need is help using it properly, so they aren’t relying on untested assumptions about how protected they really are.
If you’re a Microsoft partner looking to help your SMB customers get more from Business Premium, Defender and Purview, we’d love to talk. We work alongside partners, never against them, and we never compete with our partners for end clients.
