In an exclusive interaction with Faiz Askari for Channel Times, Kaushik Thakkar, Co-founder and Head – Corporate Development, Nevales Networks shared his views on trends and opportunities in the information security market.
Edited excerpts:
What are the key trends in UTM industry for the SME segment of India?
In India, the network security domain has witnessed a great revolution, from antivirus to firewall, content filtration and finally UTM (Unified Threat Management) is gearing up. As cloud is emerging to be great enabler for businesses, cloud security can be witnessed as a major trend in the information security domain.
There are two most prominent trends in the UTM market space for SME segment in India: the growing number of vendors that are offering products in this space and the increasing number of applications that are being added to UTM security appliances. Also the security industry is increasingly moving to a service model where vendors ensure the quality and success of their end-user.
Which are the key segments that are driving this market?
We see high growth in such segments, where customers have previously not had a security gateway solution, or a firewall. Several segments within retail, manufacturing, IT/ITES are actively looking for solutions. Also customers prefer to look into a “no hassle” solution, specifically with managed security. As the typical IT vendor, SME customers are not using trained persons who can work on the various point products or UTM products.
The demand for UTM devices is increasing day-by-day. How do you see this trend catching up in India?
We think the demand and growth rate in India is larger than any other country. The reason being that the country is big, and IT enablement is happening at a very rapid pace. And also on cyber crime and risks, India is in the Top 5. With increased connectivity this will further increase demand for a solution.
The emerging businesses have found the UTM appliance as a perfect fit for their security needs because of plethora of features like affordability, simplicity, scalability, flexibility etc. and this trend appears to continue for long. The dynamic and demanding businesses of today need security as an enabler and UTM provides the much required flexibility for modern enterprises.
Please share channel structure of Nevales in India? Also highlight your market footprint in the country.
We are working with a very few channel partners, as we want to move slowly and in a controlled manner. Currently we work with channels in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai, and intend to increase it to Delhi.
From the partner’s perspective what are the key opportunities you foresee from the market?
With simplicity, we are opening up additional revenue streams for channels that typically are not trained on selling network security solution. We also offload them on the burden of hardware replacement and 24/7 support, and also customers are very comfortable having a direct vendor supported solution in India.
We ensure the smooth sail of our partners with our solution offerings in the market. We don’t give a product to the channels for them to just stock it. Neither do we believe in creating artificial sales which forces the channel partners to struggle in the market, but instead they can refer customers and make money. The comprehensive end-to-end support we provide means that the partner is not burdened with resolving support issues.
Profitability is an essential instrument for attraction among partners. How do you ensure better profitability for your partners?
We work with very few partners, and we also have a referral fee program for new partners. We also work very hard to train our customer and partners about the space, as we believe knowledge will enable our partners to serve customers better, and that we earn more revenues.
Are there any plans for expanding the existing channel partner base for Indian market?
We are planning to expand our channel networks, and this we are going to do with the Intel channel partner network, and the Trend Micro channel partner network, as these are our strategic partners.