SEP2 Case Study

How SEP2 Delivers Specialized Cyber

Security Services That Drive Customer Growth and Retention

INDUSTRY:
Technology Solutions

HEADQUARTERS:
Leeds, UK

COMPANY SIZE:
100 employees

OVERVIEW

SEP2 is a UK-headquartered, award-winning cyber security specialist MSSP delivering managed security solutions from a 24/7/365 UK-based SOC. Founded in 2016, SEP2 employs approximately 100 people and serves customers from SME through major enterprises across private and public sectors.

OUR SOLUTION

CHALLENGE

UK-headquartered managed security services provider (MSSP) SEP2 has spent the last decade, since their first day of business, building a business on a straightforward, customer-focused premise: go deep, not wide. The MSSP market is full of competitors that offer broad but shallow service portfolios. SEP2 certainly isn’t one of them.

SEP2 recognized a clear market opportunity that would serve organizations much better than the status quo, particularly those in highly regulated industries, which are being underserved by generalist MSSPs whose technical teams lack the specialist expertise needed to deliver full value to their customers. “We provide very deep focus on best-of-breed technology in each area we specialize,” Mark McDaid, Head of Go To Market and Alliances at SEP2, explained.

Check Point has been a cornerstone of our business from day one. And Check Point enables us to compete with larger competitors and has leveled the playing field for us.
Mark McDaid, Head of Go To Market and Alliances, SEP2

McDaid further added that their target customers face two primary challenges. SEP2’s target customers range from small and medium-sized enterprises to enterprises with more than 5,000 users. All these customers need cyber security capabilities that can scale from a 10-seat office to a sprawling enterprise network, spanning on-premises, hybrid cloud, and SASE environments. SEP2 found organizations are often under-resourced internally when it comes to cyber security, lacking the headcount and expertise to run complex security operations. These enterprises need a partner who can function as a genuine extension of their team, not just a vendor who deploys a product and drops by annually for renewals.

Customers increasingly required secure access across hybrid environments, email protection against the top attack vector, governance and compliance capabilities, and human risk management—all delivered with consistent service quality regardless of which service they contracted or platform they deployed.

To be able to deliver the best-of-breed capabilities SEP2 sought since its founding, the team selected Check Point Software Technologies to provide the essential security technology stack that would best support its mission and purpose.

SOLUTION

McDaid explained that both technical merit and tight cultural alignment drove the decision to partner with Check Point. “Check Point has been a cornerstone of our business from day one,” McDaid said. “And Check Point enables us to compete with larger competitors and has leveled the playing field for us,” he continued.

Unlike many MSSPs that spread their technical teams across dozens of vendor platforms, SEP2’s best-of-breed strategy is to partner with a maximum of one or two technology vendors in each security domain they serve. For network and access security, that partner has been Check Point since it opened for business.

This level of focus means that SEP2’s entire technical team of about 60 engineers focuses solely on the technologies they support.

The technical bench SEP2 has put in place is substantial. “Pound for pound, we have more Check Point expertise across a team of 60 than some organizations probably have across a team of 200,” McDaid said.

The level of training provided is a significant benefit for technical recruitment. In fact, roughly 70 percent of the secure access team holds CCSM Elite (Check Point Certified Security Master Elite), which requires the CCSM plus two additional Specialist Accreditations; or the CCSM (Check Point Certified Security Master) accreditations, the highest professional certifications available from Check Point. “It’s a selling point for us when it comes to recruiting and attracting technical talent,” John Tammaro, Head of Customer Success at SEP2, added.

As the first UK partner to adopt Check Point’s Advocacy Management Services, SEP2 is leveraging deep collaboration and direct post sales engagement to enhance the impact of our Wingman Services.
“Our long-standing partnership with the Check Point Advocacy team—dating back to the early design of these offerings—means we not only understand the service deeply but have helped shape it. Today, this translates into consistently higher-quality outcomes, stronger process adherence, and full utilization of Check Point resources—helping us deliver measurable added value to our customers”, Tammaro said.

SEP2 structures its services under its “Wingman” brand, with Check Point technology powering multiple Wingman service lines. These include Wingman Secure Access, recently renamed from Wingman Firewall to reflect the shift from point products to comprehensive secure access. Wingman Secure Access covers on-premises gateways, cloud firewalls, SASE deployments, and hybrid environments using Check Point Firewall, Check Point Maestro Hyperscale Firewall, and Check Point SASE (Private Access / Internet Access).

Wingman Human Risk leverages Check Point Email Security to protect against email-based threats and secure collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Slack. Wingman GRC incorporates Check Point’s cyber exposure management capabilities to map dark web exposure, provide customer assessments using ThreatCloud AI, and enrich threat analysis across its entire customer base, including customers using non-Check Point security tools.

SEP2 also practices what it preaches. “If you see it on our services list, it means we’re using it ourselves,” Tammaro said. The company runs Check Point firewalls in its own cloud infrastructure, secures its email with Check Point Email Security, and uses the same deployment methodologies it recommends to customers. This internal adoption gives SEP2’s sales and technical teams firsthand experience they can share credibly with prospects. “We’re not reading from a one-page marketing document,” McDaid noted. “Our team has actual real-life experience.”

The partnership with Check Point also extends far beyond technology and into deep relationships. SEP2’s leadership maintains direct access to senior Check Point executives who provide strategic briefings, participate in quarterly business reviews, and help align SEP2’s go-to-market messaging with Check Point’s evolving portfolio. “They’ve always been very accommodating to us,” McDaid said.

OUTCOME

Partnering with Check Point has delivered measurable results across SEP2’s entire business. The company is growing at approximately 35-40 percent year over year and recently reached 100 employees. In 2025, SEP2 onboarded 88 new customers, up from 54 the prior year. That’s strong validation that their specialist strategy resonates in the market.

Operationally, the concentrated expertise translates directly into service quality. SEP2’s technical team resolves approximately 98 percent of support tickets in-house without ever having to escalate to Check Point. That’s a metric Tammaro tracks and publishes quarterly. The remaining 2% undergo a joint review with Check Point to determine whether SEP2 could have resolved the issue independently, a process that drives continuous improvement.

The partnership proved its value in a recent high-stakes engagement with an NHS hospital in the south of England. The customer, running Check Point Maestro Hyperscale Firewall had concerns about product stability stemming from a network anomaly incorrectly attributed to the firewall. SEP2 and Check Point collaborated to resolve the situation, with Check Point sending specialist R&D resources from Israel to work alongside SEP2 engineers on-site. The outcome: the customer not only retained confidence in the platform but signed a new five-year Infinity deal. “Neither SEP2 nor Check Point was asking for a charged service,” Tammaro said. “That’s about going the extra mile.”

The technical team loves Check Point. No one’s asking how other competitors are doing in the market, because we don’t need to.”
John Tammaro, Head of Customer Success, SEP2

SEP2’s people-first culture, supported by Check Point’s training and certification programs, also serves as a retention engine. The company maintains a dedicated lab facility stocked with Check Point equipment— including Maestro and VSX environments— where every technical team member can practice and expand their skills. Engineers are encouraged to dedicate up to four hours per week to personal learning, and cross-training programs enable analysts to develop engineering skills and vice versa. This investment in people has helped SEP2 maintain strong customer retention, with clients consistently signing multi-year contracts.

Looking ahead, SEP2 plans to expand its footprint within existing customer accounts by demonstrating the value of additional Wingman services. Because Check Point’s portfolio spans multiple service lines—from secure access to email security to governance—customer expansion naturally translates into deeper adoption of Check Point. SEP2 is also exploring emerging Check Point capabilities around AI security and threat intelligence to help customers protect their AI projects and stay ahead of evolving threats.

“The technical team loves Check Point,” Tammaro said. “No one’s asking how other competitors are doing in the market, because we don’t need to.”

About Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is a global cyber security leader protecting more than 100,000 organizations worldwide. Its mission is to secure enterprises’ AI transformation. With a prevention-first approach and an open ecosystem architecture, Check Point helps organizations block advanced threats, prioritize exposures, and automate security operations across complex digital environments. The unified architecture simplifies protection across hybrid networks, multi-cloud environments, digital workspaces, and AI systems. Structured around four strategic pillars, Hybrid Mesh Network Security, Workspace Security, Exposure Management, and AI Security, Check Point delivers consistent protection and visibility across multivendor environments, enabling organizations to reduce risk, improve efficiency, and accelerate innovation without increasing complexity.