Slovakia based IT security company ESET, along with its exclusive distributor Sakri, is now gunning for enterprise security market with its new range of products and more focused approach for the India market. The company has appointed its first country manager for firming up the enterprise business. Parvinder Walia, Director of Sales and Marketing – Asia Pacific and Japan, ESET talks about the company’s strategy for enterprise business and channel building
What has been ESET’s focus in APAC region; how has been the contribution of India business so far?
We are reaching about US$ 2 billion revenue, covering Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Japan is our core backbone where 60 per cent of the revenue comes from the country, consisting of home users and corporate markets. This is followed by Australia, New Zealand, Greater China and rest of the markets like Thailand, Indonesia and India. In terms of our business model, we are working with exclusive distributors and local channel partners. For example, we work exclusively with Canon IT Solution in Japan and Sakri IT Solutions in India. As far as our market positioning goes, we are among the top four players in Japan.
Year-on-year we are witnessing double digit growth in the APAC region. Moreover, we have strengthened our direct presence in countries like Japan, Singapore and Australia. As part of our expansion plans, we are betting high on India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh as well as China. We want to have a robust channel business along with our distributors for our home and enterprise range of products.
Could you elaborate on your existing channel model in India?
In the past, we were present through our distributor ESS India, which we discontinued in 2016 and appointed Sakri as our distributor for retail and enterprise product range. With Sakri, our retail business has grown multifold; Sakri has established our business in retail and SMB. Moving forward, we are now focusing on introducing sophisticated enterprise security solutions and scouting for managed security partners. In the second half of 2018, we will be launching new advanced version of enterprise security. We are in the process of building strong enterprise sales and channel roadmap with the support of Sakri.
What are your specific plans for the enterprise line of business?
Traditionally, we have been a strong security player in retail and SMB. We started building solutions for enterprises in the last three years. ESET’s vision is to be among the top three vendors in the world in the next five years. The APAC market and Indian region will be key catalysts for this growth. Globally, our mission is to be among the top three security players in all the businesses. With our newly acquired companies like DESlock and few others, we have added capabilities like data leak prevention, backup solution and patch management solutions to offer complete solutions. DESlock+ encryption solutions are part of our ESET Technology Alliance; and we work with various security companies as part of our technological alliance. Security is becoming sophisticated; single layer of security is not enough in a large enterprise. Therefore, we will bring multi-layered solutions for the enterprise.
What’s your focus on the partner ecosystem?
Besides products and solutions, we are establishing our network of system integrators (SIs) and channel partners. We want both services and sales centric partners. Currently, we are in the process of creating a partner programme and building a new team under our newly appointed country manager, Ajay Kumar Joshi, who will be heading the India and SAARC market. His top priority is to establish the enterprise channel and work closely with our distributors for new opportunities. Business wise, 65 per cent of our business comes from the consumer segment and 10 per cent is enterprise; whereas rest is SMB.
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