The Netsurion team was lucky enough to attend the RetailNOW 2016 conference last week, hosted by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) in Grapevine, Texas.

The event, aimed at connecting the point-of-sale (POS) technology ecosystem, was extremely successful because it gave us the perfect platform to further connect with our existing partners—and to meet and interact with industry leaders.

Cybersecurity and breach prevention were some of the hottest topics at the conference—and we were able to share our expertise in these areas through breakout sessions and presentations.

Our “What’s up breaches!” tee shirts were also a great way to get the word out, with plenty of attendees sporting them throughout the week.

There have been many high profile breaches at well-known, big-budget chain restaurants and hotels recently. This just shows that even companies with expansive, big-budget security are still being targeted.

During our speaking sessions, we emphasized network security as the most important first line of defense.

It all comes down to this:

A well segmented network can be the difference between a successful business and a business in the headlines of the latest data breach.

According to the National Cyber Security Alliance:

96 percent of data breaches target the payment card industry. Such breaches can be caused by POS malware, employee mistakes, and internal or external hacking.

Not to mention that as businesses protect themselves from these threats, new technologies, such as EMV, biometrics and mPOS, arise. Technology gets better; hackers get smarter…so what are businesses doing to keep their brands and data secured?

Sure, it’s important for businesses to embrace technology for the convenience of their customers and to stay competitive in the market. However, also important to remember the security risks that new (and more) technology brings.

This threat landscape and new technologies should ultimately push retailers to embrace network security as a first line defense strategy. Data security and PCI compliance should be the priority of any business in today’s market.

And businesses of all sizes deserve a chance to achieve enterprise-level data and network security.

Netsurion’s goal is to provide multi-location businesses with affordable but equally effective alternatives to self-managed security solutions—keeping the burden off the owners’ shoulders and away from their brand reputation.

Post-RetailNOW, Jim Roddy, reseller & ISV business advisor at Vantiv, posted this excellent conference roundup.

In the write-up, he stated:

“Managed services is no longer a far-off concept for POS providers. Many resellers I talked with have fully embraced the recurring revenue business model and are looking to expand it even further in their business. There are now model resellers you can pattern your business after if you want to move to the as-a-Service model.”

Mark Bartig, our senior vice president of Sales & Marketing, actually appeared on a panel discussion carried by Vantiv called “Security as A HUGE revenue opportunity.” The panel of experts offered best practices and tips around how providers can position security products and managed services to monetize security recurrently.

And we’re lucky enough to have extremely supportive resellers who see the value in making their customers more secure. They’re a major factor in making our ultimate network and data security goals for all businesses a reality.

We are honored that they feel our support for them in return. To wrap up a productive and educational few days at the conference, we were thrilled to learn that we were selected as the ‘Reseller Support Services’ winner at the 2016 RSPA Vendor Awards of Excellence.

The annual awards are honors given to RSPA vendor members in recognition of their outstanding achievements in service, quality and channel engagement.

Netsurion was nominated by our partners and voted as the winner by the RSPA members. Our award was the last one introduced by RSPA. They mentioned it received an "overwhelming" response from the RSPA reseller community and that Netsurion was the only company worthy of being nominated for this category. This was truly a tribute to the entire Netsurion team, as it shows that our partners appreciate us as much as we appreciate them.

Thank you to everyone who helped make RetailNOW an overall success for Netsurion—we look forward to talking security with you all next year!