ManageEngine offers an integrated suite of IT infrastructure management solutions, both on-premises and cloud-based.
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“With the onset of the pandemic, we realigned our strategies to focus on the solutions that could help organisations adapt to the remote work model, allowing access to data across different locations without compromising on security.”
Arun Kumar J,
Regional Director – Sales,
ManageEngine
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As October is being celebrated as International Cybersecurity Awareness Month, there’s improved collaboration between government and private industry to raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal data from digital forms of crime.
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“Zoho’s wide range of products are designed to address the surge in demand for a secure cloud environment that enables hybrid or remote work.”
Ram Vaidyanathan,
Cybersecurity Evangelist,
ManageEngine
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The month of October is dedicated to creating resources and communications for organizations to talk to their employees and customers about staying safe online. The Cybersecurity Awareness Month reminds us all that there are viable ways to keep our data secure and protected. Sticking to certain security best practices can make a huge difference to our data security.
As part of our effort to raise awareness and explore current state of the threat landscape, we have started a series of interactions with the who’s who of Indian Cybersecurity Industry.
In a special interaction with SME Channels, Ram Vaidyanathan, Cybersecurity Evangelist, ManageEngine and Arun Kumar J, Regional Director – Sales, ManageEngine, reveal their organization’s approach to cybersecurity; ManageEngine’s key offerings in this space, changing security scape; opportunities and challenges, opportunities for channel growth; their forecasts for the industry; and their company’s vision and plans for the channel community. Edited excerpts…
As a frontline cybersecurity player, how has your company been leveraging this uptick in demand?
Ram Vaidyanathan:
- Zoho’s wide range of products are designed to address the surge in demand for a secure cloud environment that enables hybrid or remote work. ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho, offers software solutions that ensure enterprises stay secure and continue to offer satisfying user experiences.
- Log360, ManageEngine’s unified security information and event management solution, recently introduced features like anomaly modelling and peer group analysis to keep track of suspicious user behavior. It’s built-in security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) capabilities make Log360 the right choice for security operations center (SOC) teams responsible for the security of both on-premises and cloud infrastructures.
- One of the core advantages of SOAR is automated incident response, which drastically reduces the mean time to respond, giving SOC teams time to address other important tasks or incidents.
- ManageEngine facilitates integration and deep linking between all its products by displaying them in a single dashboard, creating a seamless user experience.
Choosing the correct solution from a crowd of solutions is like searching for a needle in a haystack. So, what sort of product differentiation do you bring to the table?
Ram Vaidyanathan:
What makes Log360 unique is its ability to bring multiple security capabilities into one console, making it easy for analysts to access information conveniently and make policy decisions.
The preferred choice for enterprise security includes monitoring changes to your AD environment in real time along with:
- Automating response workflows for faster incident response.
- Managing incidents for efficient resolution.
- Collecting and parsing logs from various sources.
- Conducting log forensics from the collected logs.
- Leveraging user behaviour and analytics to detect anomalous activity.
- Using threat intelligence to identify new types of threats.
Apart from this, Log360 also offers seamless integration with popular ticketing tools like ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to help you effectively manage security incidents.
What key cybersecurity mega trends do you foresee in the security market?
Ram Vaidyanathan:
Technology is ever evolving and, as a result, there’s a parallel shift in cybersecurity trends.
Here are seven trends we predict:
- Ransomware, including Ransomware as a Service, and cloud ransomware
- Internet of Things threats—especially Internet of Medical Things threats
- Supply chain attacks
- Attacks against operational technology
- Attacks against mobile devices
- Adoption of Zero Trust network architectures
- Adoption of security solutions with SOAR capabilities to automate detection and response
How is your channel strategy aligning with the current market trends?
Arun Kumar J:
We have seen a huge increase in cloud adoption post pandemic. Before the pandemic, cloud adoption and digital transformation existed, but they weren’t a high priority for organisations. However, after the pandemic, with the remote work model resulting in employees being distributed across multiple locations and the seamless transfer of data required to ensure business continuity, moving to the cloud essentially became a top priority overnight. Since cloud technology enables seamless transfer of data across multiple locations, employees could access data and maintain business operations.
ManageEngine offers an integrated suite of IT infrastructure management solutions, both on-premises and cloud-based. We already had these product offerings before the pandemic; however, we realigned our strategies to focus on the solutions that could help organisations adapt to the remote work model. We had specific solutions for remote work operations that ensured employees could access data across different locations without compromising on security.
We predict these trends in the IT solutions and services market:
- The hybrid model will continue even after the pandemic, as most organisations will be adopting a hybrid work model.
- Cloud adoption will continue increasing in the coming years.
- IT teams will prioritise ensuring data is simultaneously secure and accessible to offer a seamless customer experience, since data will be accessed on multiple platforms across various locations.
- Security will continue gaining importance because of the evolving threat landscape. Organisations will invest in tools like endpoint management and security, privileged access management, remote access, and Zero Trust.
How do you upskill your partner ecosystem to provide a more ebullient security service?
Arun Kumar J:
We invest a lot in training our partners and conduct regular training programs on the latest product enhancements and market trends. Along with the product training programs, we also ensure all our partners are certified on our products. While most organisations work with a channel ecosystem to acquire customers and drive growth, it’s important to structure the partner program with defined objectives, like offering consulting and delivery services, etc. This, to a great extent, helps both organizations and the channel eco-system scale the business and embrace a win-win partnership.
When it comes to selling a product, customer experience weighs over the rest. So, what sort of pre-sales and post-sales services do you offer?
Ram Vaidyanathan:
Our goal is to understand our prospects’ business requirements, their current business models and workflows, and their pain points. We also aim to educate them about our products, including features and services, to help them make the best buying decisions for their organisation.
We offer:
- Customized demos to help them understand our products.
- Webinars elaborating on the features of our products.
- Workshops to demonstrate how to use the products.
- 24/7 chat support to address their queries.
We make sure to guide and support the customer every step of the way. We are dedicated to accomplishing our customers’ goals and ensuring a smooth post-sales experience.
We offer:
- 24/5 customer support via email and phone.
- We aim to respond within three hours of raising a service question or request during business hours.
- Free one-on-one demos, training, and implementation.
Are you planning any major investment towards channel expansion or in terms of expanding your head count in India?
Arun Kumar J:
We are growing at 50% both on our revenue and customer count year over year in the India market and are looking to double those numbers by 2023. We have already begun hiring and are expanding locally across all major metros. We are moving towards building value-added partners on the channel strategy and not just being transactional, as customers today expect partners to not only implement the product offerings but also to provide domain intelligence by solving their business challenges. Our investments are focused on enabling partners to deliver value to customers based on their business needs and market trends.
What would be your growth outlook for the current year?
Ram Vaidyanathan:
Our objective is to help customers investigate, detect, and respond to threats in a timely fashion. To achieve this, we need to stay relevant in this era of digital transformation and sophisticated attacks. We prioritize investing in superior product design and contextual integrations so that our customers can accelerate their own digital transformation while securing their hybrid networks. We will continue to add newer capabilities for the C-suite, such as threat hunting and metrics-based dashboards. Currently, our main markets are the United States and the United Kingdom, but we are fast expanding our business in other markets across the globe.
