Zscaler
Written by the Bee, read it before you send it
KPIMore first meetings turn into real deals, on less preparation time
Zscaler's FY2024 earnings cycle surfaced two compounding pressures — elongated deal cycles from CFO budget scrutiny on large platform commitments, and an explicit investor-day commitment to expand the MSSP/VAR channel to reach the mid-market segment — exactly the moment when TD SYNNEX's combination of security distribution breadth, as-a-Service financing, and MSSP enablement infrastructure becomes most strategically valuable to Zscaler's growth motion.
Cybersecurity (Solutionhouse MSSP Practice-Builder)
Cybersecurity high
Accelerating ARR growth past $2B and expanding Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange platform into new security domains (AI, OT/IoT, identity) to extend leadership over Palo Alto Networks and Netskope in the SSE/SASE market.
Jay Chaudhry
CEO, Chairman & Founder, Zscaler, Inc. · 18 years, 9 months (founded Zscaler in October 2007)
Serial entrepreneur who founded and sold four security companies between 1996–2007 (SecureIT to VeriSign; CipherTrust to Secure Computing/McAfee; AirDefense to Motorola; CoreHarbor to USi/AT&T) before founding Zscaler. Holds an MBA from University of Cincinnati plus dual master's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Electrical/Computer Engineering, and a B.Tech from IIT BHU Varanasi. Completed Harvard Business School's Executive Management Program. Widely recognized as the architect of the cloud-native Zero Trust category — Gartner has named Zscaler a Magic Quadrant leader for 12 consecutive years under his tenure. Frequently cited as a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 CIOs and CISOs. Active LinkedIn creator with 115,000+ followers; posts frequently on Zero Trust, AI-driven security, and cybersecurity leadership. Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Southeast USA and Silicon Valley).
- Accelerating ARR growth past $2B and expanding Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange platform into new security domains (AI, OT/IoT, identity) to extend leadership over Palo Alto Networks and Netskope in the SSE/SASE market.
- Integrating the Avalor AI Security Posture Management acquisition (closed 2024) to deliver risk-quantification and AI-driven threat intelligence natively within the Zero Trust Exchange.
- Expanding and enabling the channel partner and MSSP ecosystem — Zscaler relies heavily on GSIs, VARs, and MSSPs to scale its go-to-market, and Chaudhry has publicly emphasized needing distribution breadth to reach mid-market and international customers.
- Deepening enterprise customer consolidation deals — winning replacements of legacy firewalls, VPNs, and multi-product on-prem security stacks as a single cloud platform play, a narrative Chaudhry repeats in every public forum.
- Driving AI-powered security innovation including Zscaler AI copilots for SOC analysts, AI-driven ZTNA, and the Breach Predictor product launched in 2024, maintaining the company's Gartner Magic Quadrant leadership position.
- Zero Trust architecture as the foundational model for enterprise security — Chaudhry has evangelized this publicly since 2010, writing extensively on why perimeter-based security is obsolete.
- AI and machine learning applied to cybersecurity — frequently posts on LinkedIn about GenAI threats, AI-driven SOC, and Zscaler's use of AI processing 500 trillion daily signals.
- Entrepreneurship and company building — speaks at YC events, IIT alumni forums, and startup conferences about his journey from four acquisitions to building an iconic public company.
- Cloud-first digital transformation — particularly how direct-to-internet architectures replace MPLS and hub-and-spoke network models; a theme throughout his conference talks at Zenith Live and RSA.
- IIT BHU alumni network and STEM education — recognized as 'Alumnus of the Century in Making' and actively engages with the IIT community; speaks on engineering leadership and immigration entrepreneurship.
Zscaler today
- Industry
- Cybersecurity / Cloud-Native Security / SSE-SASE
- Size
- ~6,000–7,000 employees (FY2024); NASDAQ: ZS; market cap ~$18–22B (2025); FY2024 revenue ~$2.17B, ~21% YoY growth
- HQ
- San Jose, California, United States
- Footprint
- HQ: San Jose, CA; major U.S. offices in Seattle, New York, and Washington DC (federal/public sector focus) · EMEA: London (largest EMEA hub), Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Dubai · APAC: Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Bangalore (large R&D center) · Major customer verticals: Financial services (large banks, insurance), healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing and industrial (OT security expansion), U.S. federal/SLED (FedRAMP authorized), technology enterprises · Distribution model: 100% channel — exclusively through GSIs (Accenture, Deloitte, Wipro), VARs, MSSPs, and distributors; no direct fulfillment bypassing partners · 45 million protected users across 7,700+ enterprise customers globally
Zscaler is the world's largest cloud-native security platform, operating the Zero Trust Exchange — a globally distributed security cloud that processes more than 500 trillion signals and 150 billion transactions daily across 190 countries. The company is the defining vendor in the Secure Service Edge (SSE) / SASE category, replacing legacy firewalls, VPNs, and on-premises security appliances with a cloud-delivered Zero Trust architecture. Publicly traded on NASDAQ (ZS), Zscaler crossed $2B ARR in FY2023 and reported FY2024 revenue of approximately $2.17B. Over 40% of Fortune 500 enterprises and 7,700+ organizations globally are customers. Founded in 2007 by Jay Chaudhry; IPO in 2018.
- Acquired Avalor (AI Security Posture Management / risk quantification) for ~$310M, closed early 2024 — integrating AI-driven risk scoring into the Zero Trust Exchange platform under the 'Risk360' product.
- Launched Zscaler AI copilots and 'Breach Predictor' at Zenith Live 2024 (May 2024) — AI-native SOC tooling built on the 500-trillion-daily-signal data lake, targeting CISO-level platform consolidation conversations.
- Expanded Zero Trust for OT/IoT (Operational Technology) segment with new industrial security capabilities announced in 2024, targeting manufacturing and critical infrastructure customers — a materially new TAM extension.
- Entered a strategic partnership with CrowdStrike (2024) to integrate Falcon Identity and XDR telemetry with Zscaler ZIA and ZPA, enabling joint Zero Trust + EDR bundling for enterprise accounts.
- Deepened Microsoft partnership — Zscaler ZPA and ZIA now integrate natively with Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Microsoft Sentinel SIEM, and Microsoft Defender XDR, supporting co-sell motions on Microsoft's marketplace.
- Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for SSE for the second consecutive year (2024) and received highest-ever scores in Gartner Critical Capabilities for SSE — used actively in CISO sales cycles.
- Growth deceleration anxiety: After doubling ARR in under two years to $2B+, FY2024 revenue growth slowed to ~21% YoY from 35%+ prior-year rates, prompting analyst pressure on whether Zscaler can sustain a premium growth multiple as the SSE market matures and Palo Alto Networks aggressively bundles competing Prisma SASE capabilities.
- Platform consolidation competitive pressure: Palo Alto Networks launched aggressive 'platformization' discounting (offering free SASE modules to existing NGFW customers), directly attacking Zscaler's displacement-of-firewalls narrative and pressuring deal sizes and win rates in 2024.
- Channel reach limitations in mid-market: Zscaler's direct and GSI-led motion skews toward large enterprises (5,000+ seats); multiple earnings calls and partner forums have flagged the need for broader distribution reach into the 500–5,000 employee mid-market segment where resellers and distributors are the primary route to market.
- Sales execution and go-to-market scale: Zscaler's FY2024 Q3 earnings call flagged elongated deal cycles and increased scrutiny from enterprise CFOs on large multi-year Zero Trust platform commitments, reflecting macro IT budget pressure across all security vendors in 2024.
- Talent and R&D scaling: Zscaler's job boards consistently show 100+ open engineering, product, and security research roles globally, particularly in AI/ML engineering and OT security — indicating pressure to staff up ahead of the Avalor integration and AI product roadmap.
- Federal/compliance complexity: FedRAMP High authorization and expanding U.S. federal business creates compliance overhead and specialized channel requirements (cleared VARs, GSA schedules) that strain Zscaler's standard commercial channel motion.
- AI-native security platform: Jay Chaudhry has publicly committed to embedding AI across the entire Zero Trust Exchange stack — including AI-powered threat hunting (Breach Predictor), AI copilots for security analysts, and the Avalor-derived Risk360 AI risk scoring — framing Zscaler as the AI-first SSE platform vs. legacy appliance vendors.
- Zero Trust for OT/IoT expansion: Zscaler publicly targets the industrial/OT security segment as a major TAM extension, announcing dedicated OT/IoT Zero Trust capabilities in 2024 to capture manufacturing, energy, and utilities customers migrating from air-gapped to connected environments.
- Platform consolidation as a budget weapon: Chaudhry's core investor and customer narrative is that Zscaler replaces 10–15 point security products (firewalls, VPNs, SWGs, CASBs, DLP tools) with one platform — directly attacking IT budgets stressed by tool sprawl and enabling consolidation ROI conversations.
- Federal and regulated industry growth: Zscaler is investing heavily in its federal segment (FedRAMP High, IL4/5 authorizations) and in regulated verticals (BFSI, healthcare), treating these as durable, multi-year revenue anchors less susceptible to budget seasonality.
- Global channel and MSSP ecosystem expansion: Zscaler's FY2024 investor materials explicitly cite expanding the MSSP partner program and geographic channel coverage (particularly EMEA and APAC mid-market) as a top go-to-market priority, with dedicated channel chief investments.
- Data platform and analytics differentiation: Zscaler's 500-trillion-signal-per-day data lake is being positioned as a unique AI training asset that no on-prem or smaller cloud security vendor can replicate — used to justify premium pricing and differentiate from Netskope and Skyhigh.
Positioning
TD SYNNEX is the distribution and enablement layer that lets Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange reach the mid-market VAR and MSSP segment at scale — without Zscaler having to build and fund a direct sales infrastructure for deals under $500K. With 150,000+ products across 1,500+ vendors, TD SYNNEX can package Zscaler's ZIA, ZPA, and ZDX licenses alongside the complementary security portfolio (CrowdStrike, Okta, Microsoft Sentinel) that Zscaler's own technology partnership ecosystem demands, converting complex multi-vendor Zero Trust deployments into a single, financeable, partner-delivered solution. Through TD SYNNEX Capital's as-a-Service financing and the Solutionhouse MSSP practice-builder program, we can accelerate the partner-sourced pipeline growth that Zscaler's investor materials have explicitly flagged as the next ARR unlock.
Pitches
Cybersecurity (Solutionhouse MSSP Practice-Builder)
Zscaler's own investor materials cite expanding the MSSP partner ecosystem as a top GTM lever, yet building a Zscaler Zero Trust practice from scratch requires ZIA/ZPA/ZDX certification, a managed-service wrapper, and the ability to bundle complementary tools like CrowdStrike and Microsoft Sentinel — all of which are already distributed through TD SYNNEX's security portfolio. TD SYNNEX's Solutionhouse program provides the practice-builder playbooks, co-sell packaging, and pre-built solution bundles that let a security reseller go from 'we're interested in Zscaler' to 'we're running a Zscaler-anchored managed Zero Trust practice' in weeks rather than quarters, directly converting the mid-market channel gap Zscaler has publicly named into incremental partner-sourced ARR.
TD SYNNEX Capital (Financing)
Zscaler's Q3 FY2024 earnings call flagged elongated deal cycles driven by enterprise CFO scrutiny on large, multi-year Zero Trust platform commitments — and mid-market resellers face the same dynamic amplified, because they can't absorb a $1M–$3M deferred contract on their own balance sheet. TD SYNNEX Capital's as-a-Service consumption and credit line models let resellers offer Zscaler's platform on a monthly OpEx basis to end customers, removing the upfront commitment barrier that's stalling deals — without Zscaler having to change its billing model or take on financing risk itself.
Professional & Managed Services (Partner Enablement / Click-to-Run)
A Zscaler Zero Trust deployment at enterprise or mid-market scale is not a plug-and-play event — it requires identity integration (Entra ID, Okta), endpoint agent deployment, policy migration from legacy VPNs, and ongoing tuning of ZIA data protection policies. TD SYNNEX's pre-sales architecture and deployment services can either be white-labeled by Zscaler's channel partners or delivered as TD SYNNEX-branded support, ensuring that resellers without dedicated Zscaler PS bench strength can still close and successfully deliver complex Zero Trust deployments — protecting Zscaler's customer satisfaction and renewal rates in the mid-market.
Conversation arc
“Jay, congratulations on what you've built — 7,700 enterprises, $2B ARR crossed, and 12 consecutive Gartner Magic Quadrant leader positions is a genuinely rare outcome. We're not here to pitch a product catalog. We're here because we think there's a specific gap between Zscaler's current GSI-and-direct motion and the mid-market VAR and MSSP segment that your FY2024 materials flagged as the next growth layer — and we believe we're already operating in exactly that white space. Can I take five minutes to share what we're seeing from our 150,000-partner vantage point, and then I'd love your perspective on where that channel development sits in your priorities right now?”
“When your channel team looks at the reseller and MSSP segment — say, partners selling to companies between 500 and 5,000 employees — where do you see the biggest friction? Is it partner certification and deployment readiness, is it the upfront capital commitment that your subscription model requires, or is it that partners are still leading with firewall-and-VPN conversations and haven't built a Zero Trust practice yet? I ask because we see all three of those dynamics across our security reseller base, and the answer changes what we'd propose to you.”
“Here's what we can do that's specific to Zscaler's situation. First, through our Solutionhouse security practice, we run structured partner enablement programs — we can stand up a Zscaler Zero Trust practice for resellers who today don't have a single Zscaler certification, packaging your ZIA, ZPA, and ZDX alongside CrowdStrike and Microsoft Sentinel, which are already your integration partners, into a solution bundle partners can actually pitch and deploy. Second, TD SYNNEX Capital can convert your multi-year subscription commitments into monthly as-a-Service billing for mid-market partners who can't absorb a $2M upfront contract — that directly addresses the CFO scrutiny on large deals that showed up in your Q3 earnings call. Third, our 150,000-product catalog means your resellers can source Zscaler through the same transaction as the endpoints, identity, and network infrastructure the customer is also buying — we eliminate the multi-vendor procurement friction for the partner.”
“That's fair — and if your existing distributor relationships are fully covering the mid-market MSSP segment with the Zero Trust practice depth and consumption financing we're describing, you probably don't need another distributor. But I'd push back gently: the fact that you explicitly called out mid-market channel expansion as a priority in your investor materials suggests there's a gap the current motion isn't closing. We're not asking you to replace anyone — we're asking for a 90-day pilot with 20 of our Solutionhouse security resellers who have active customers being pitched legacy VPN refresh. If we can convert five of those to Zscaler Zero Trust deals that wouldn't have come through your current channel, that's incremental ARR with zero conflict.”
“Jay, here's what I'd suggest as a next step: we set up a half-day working session between your channel chief and our Solutionhouse security practice lead to map the specific partner segments and geographies where TD SYNNEX has coverage that your current distribution doesn't. We'll come in with data on which of our active security resellers are already in conversations with your prospects, and we can identify five to ten joint opportunities within 30 days. Would you be willing to make that intro to your channel team this week so we can move fast on it?”
Ask these
- Q1Zscaler's FY2024 earnings calls specifically flagged elongated deal cycles and CFO scrutiny on large multi-year platform commitments. When your MSSP and VAR partners are pitching Zero Trust platform deals in the $500K–$2M range to mid-market customers, what's the biggest deal-blocker: is it the customer's budget approval process, the partner's inability to offer consumption-based billing, or something else — and how are you currently helping partners navigate that?
- Q2You've publicly committed to expanding the MSSP partner program as a top GTM priority, and your platform now includes ZIA, ZPA, ZDX, and the Avalor-derived Risk360 AI risk-scoring. When an MSSP tries to build a Zscaler-anchored managed security practice today, what's the hardest part — getting certified on the platform, building a profitable managed service wrapper, or competing against Palo Alto's 'platformization' bundling discounts that they're using to lock in existing NGFW customers?
- Q3Your CrowdStrike partnership (2024) and Microsoft Entra/Sentinel integration mean that a complete Zero Trust deployment for an enterprise customer requires Zscaler plus at least two or three other vendors. Are your channel partners today capable of selling and delivering that full multi-vendor Zero Trust stack, or are deals stalling because the partner can only own one piece and the customer has to coordinate the rest themselves?
- Q4Zscaler's OT/IoT Zero Trust expansion targets manufacturing and industrial customers who are migrating from air-gapped to connected environments — a segment where your traditional cloud-security resellers have limited expertise. What does your channel coverage look like in that industrial/OT segment today, and are there specific geographies where you know there's demand but you don't have a qualified partner on the ground to capture it?
- Q5You've built a 150-billion-transaction-per-day cloud platform across 150+ PoPs and 190 countries. When a mid-market reseller in, say, Southeast Asia or Southern Europe wants to take Zscaler to their local customers, what's the biggest gap in your current distribution infrastructure in those regions — is it partner recruitment, deal registration and margin protection, or local-language technical support that the partner can offer their customer?
Feasibility
FAQs
'We already have distribution partnerships with Ingram Micro and others — we don't need another distributor.'
Acknowledge the existing relationships directly and don't contest them — instead, reframe the conversation around the specific mid-market MSSP segment gap that Zscaler's own investor materials have named. Point out that the question is not whether a distributor exists, but whether the current distribution coverage is actually closing partner-sourced deals in the 500–5,000-employee customer segment at the rate Zscaler's ARR targets require. TD SYNNEX's differentiation is the Solutionhouse security practice-builder program, the TD SYNNEX Capital as-a-Service financing layer, and the 150,000-product breadth that lets a partner bundle Zscaler with CrowdStrike, Microsoft Sentinel, and endpoint hardware in a single transaction — capabilities that generic distribution relationships don't provide. Propose a 90-day pilot with a defined set of TD SYNNEX MSSP partners in a non-conflicting geography or segment to generate data rather than debate.
'Zscaler is a cloud SaaS platform — we don't need a physical distributor. Partners buy direct or through the hyperscaler marketplaces.'
This is a fair and sophisticated objection from a founder-CEO who built a cloud-native company. Acknowledge that the traditional 'box-moving distributor' model is irrelevant to Zscaler's motion — and then reframe TD SYNNEX's value as a channel enablement and financing platform, not a logistics company. The real value is not moving atoms; it's the Solutionhouse practice-builder program that converts non-Zscaler-certified resellers into active pipeline generators, the TD SYNNEX Capital layer that removes the upfront commitment barrier from mid-market deals, and the StreamOne Ion multi-cloud marketplace that adds a distribution channel alongside the hyperscaler marketplaces. Reinforce that Zscaler's own channel chief is investing in MSSP program expansion precisely because the hyperscaler marketplace motion doesn't reach the tail of the VAR and MSSP market.
'Our enterprise GTM is GSI-led (Accenture, Deloitte, Wipro) — we don't need mid-market channel development right now.'
Validate the GSI motion and Zscaler's enterprise focus, then draw attention to the explicit mid-market gap in Zscaler's own investor commentary: GSIs don't serve the 500–5,000-employee customer segment profitably, and that segment represents a significant portion of the addressable market for Zero Trust platform adoption. The competitive risk is also specific: Palo Alto Networks' 'platformization' discounting is being used to lock mid-market customers who already have NGFW into Prisma SASE before Zscaler's channel develops coverage — meaning the cost of inaction in mid-market channel development is not zero. TD SYNNEX's proposal is precisely aimed at the segment the GSI motion doesn't reach, and a pilot can be scoped to avoid any overlap with Zscaler's existing enterprise and GSI accounts.
What they appear to run
- Zscaler Technology Ecosystem Marketplace publicly lists 50+ named integrations including Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Okta, ServiceNow, Splunk, and AWS — direct evidence of multi-vendor stack
- CrowdStrike strategic partnership press release (2024) confirms Falcon XDR telemetry sharing with Zscaler ZIA and ZPA — direct evidence of joint platform architecture
- Zscaler Avalor acquisition (2024): Avalor's AI risk-quantification platform relies on ingesting signals from cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure) and security tools — signals AI/ML cloud compute dependency at scale
- Zscaler job postings (2024–2025) list requirements for 'AWS SageMaker,' 'Python/ML pipelines,' 'Snowflake or equivalent cloud data warehouse,' and 'Kubernetes/Docker' — signals AI-scale cloud infrastructure stack
- Microsoft co-sell listing on Azure Marketplace confirms Zscaler ZIA, ZPA, and ZDX are purchasable through Microsoft Azure Marketplace — direct evidence of Azure marketplace presence
- Zscaler's publicly stated '150+ PoP locations across all major cloud regions' confirms multi-cloud infrastructure dependency on AWS, Azure, and GCP simultaneously