Looking at the changing cybersecurity landscape, the security major is not only strengthening its technological foundation but also leveraging the strong network of its channel partners
International cybersecurity solutions provider, F-Secure, has been going through a transformation phase for last two years globally as well as in India. The company has been putting efforts to change its positioning from being an antivirus company to an end-to-end cybersecurity solution provider. “The transformation is in rapid motion in all spheres of the company,” says F-Secure’s Head of Asia Pacific Corporate Business, Amit Nath, who recently moved to the Global Sales Director – Sales Enablement role at F-Secure.
The company is strengthening its technological foundation and leveraging technologies to build a robust and agile cyber defence framework in India. F-Secure’s growth can be attributed to diversification, both in terms of product portfolio and market strategy. Channel has been instrumental in driving the company’s growth in India. In the past two years, the company has acquired close to 2,000 new customers and 400 channels partners.
“We are a very customer and partner-centric company and are constantly looking to build on this differentiation by gathering first-hand inputs from our channel partners across markets. This proactive approach allows us to add to our existing product portfolio and build new technologies and features and solutions in keeping pace with the rapidly-evolving global cybersecurity landscape,” puts in Nath.
Nath explained the strategy behind migrating towards an end-to-end cyber security player, “We are working very closely with our select partners while leveraging their strength in reaching out to new customers. We believe in value business and that’s why we work cohesively with our top 50 business partners, as these partners contribute 80% of the business to F-secure. Our joint efforts to understand the customer’s pain areas in security has paid off well and we have successfully pivoted from being an antivirus company to an end-to-end cybersecurity solution provider.”
The company has been doing large series of global acquisitions and building new products. As the cybersecurity market is changing drastically, F-Secure feels the market needs automated detection and response solution rather than just reactive antivirus. The company is building security solutions around predict, prevent, respond and detect. With the renewed focus on business and channel, 2017-18 had been a great year for F-Secure. The company claims to double the business and its partners base.
“In the recent times, we have seen global ransomware attacks hitting the businesses globally. But none of our customers were impacted as we offer a high degree of protection. Besides, we are also educating customers on their infrastructure and appraising them with vulnerabilities within the systems and do regular security audits. Some customers are fairly matured and come to us with the problem to fix the gap,” he informs.
F-Secure believes to carry out more value business in spite of the volume business. “I don’t see the value of channel business getting diminished, as more and more companies are doing direct business with the customers. In my view, its growing constantly. None of the company can grow if their channel is not happy. However, we still feel there is a need to do more work for partners,” asserts Nath.
As the company is becoming more dynamic for partners and customers, it is also preparing its partners to start pitching for newer technology and take early mover advantage. “Currently we are having a dialogue with a new set of partners who are offering solutions beyond antivirus like vulnerability assessment, detection and response solutions. We also have a strong channel ecosystem in India, with over 200 channel partners and we are constantly adding new partners. We look for the partners who have this service-oriented business model,” concludes Nath.
