ITSecurity has been always a major concern for any user irrespective of its vertical or industry. With growingcyber-attacks, there are huge opportunity for vendors to offer best security solutions. Kaspersky Labs, the leading security player, has been putting their sincere efforts in countering security issues for consumers. Mr. Altaf Halde, Managing Director - South Asia, Kaspersky Lab speaks exclusively with DT and shares his opinion on some key issues related with security.
Q:How do you see the current security market in India?
A:The Threat landscape is increasing day by day. The Cyber Criminals are coming up with new & novel methods to target users. The complexity is increasing every massing minute. In such a scenario / landscape, the security market globally is improving and addressing a wider spectrum of audience. India is not different. Starting with consumers and going upto large enterprises, everyone understands that security is critical. Kaspersky is one of the few companies that has been detecting new and advanced threats on a regular basis. We have been coming up with new solutions and services which have been accepted very well by the Indian customers inboth b2c as well as b2b segment. With the Digital India & the Smart Cities initiatives, we have seen not only private vendors, but, also government departments taking IT Security very seriously. We strongly believe that IT Security is not a destination, it is a journey.
Q. What are the growth factors for this market to grow immensely?
A:As mentioned above, the Threat Landscape is increasing day by day. Cyber Criminals are coming up with new & novel methods to target customers. This is one of the biggest reason that is driving the growth in the market. Secondly, the Digital India & Smart Cities initiative is also a big reason for the growth in the security market. In the time to come, we are confident that the market is going to progress fast in the upward direction
Q. What are the major challenge for this industry?
A:In today’s era of increase in smartphone usage, higher data speeds, low cost of data, more and more users are getting online. Governments are investing heavily in Digital India & Smart Cities initiative. In all of this environment, it becomes very important that education / awareness of increasing cyber threats / attacks improves. From our side, we feel that this area is the biggest challenge for the industry. Though everyone understands the need for securing their data etc. but we still have many compromises that happen. We strongly feel that, in the IT Security landscape, humans / users are the weakest link. This is the challenge that needs to be addressed. From our side, Kaspersky Lab, takes a lot of effort in spreading awareness not only to end customers, but, also to large enterprises. Kaspersky Lab, also works with may schools to spread the message of being safe on the internet.
Q:What are the main efforts you keep on applying to maintain leadership position in the Indian market?
A:Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately help IT Security company. Out of our entire company strength of 3500+ team members, one third is from R&D. We also have a team of 42 highly skilled world leading security researchers as part of our elite group called GReAT (Global Research & Analysis Team). This large outreach & expertise helps us to be ahead of the cyber criminals. Keeping this background in mind, it is important to note that the minute anyone gets on the world wide web, irrespective of the region he or she is from, there is a possibility to be targeted. With our expertise and world class solutions, we have been able to continue to establish our leadership position in the Indian market. Along with this, makes it important to acknowledge that, our success has been possible with the effort of our partner community. In order to maintain the leadership position, we continue to develop world class solutions and we continue to work closely with our partners.
Q:How does your partners helping you in establishing huge market penetration?
A:In the recently concluded Kaspersky Lab APAC Partner Conference in Vietnam, our B2C Distributor – V R Infotech, got the Most Outstanding Partner Award. This was possible only because of the ground work done by them and our partner community. The spread that has happened in tier2 & tier 3 cities is the biggest reason of our success. We believe & practise in helping our partners with the right tools and high margins so that they see a mutually beneficial business association.
Q:How do you plan to boost awareness among your partners?
A:With the help of our distributors, we have been strategically targeting Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities. Kaspersky being a pull product in the Indian market place, coupled with its technologically advanced protection & features, has helped to create a win-win partnership for our partner community. This word of mouth alongwith good schemes and margins is helping us increase the awareness among the partners.
Q:What sort of benefit, support and margin you offer to your channel partners?
A:All the partners of Kaspersky Lab have been with us for many years. Over a period of so many years, the trust and support for each other has increased. This has been possible by ensuring that the partners make a healthy margin, provide technologically superior products and excellent post-sales support.
Q:How are you moving ahead in building partner base for enterprise security solution in India?
A:Kaspersky Lab has established a very strong foothold in the B2C & SMB space in the past few years. In parallel, we started focussing on the Enterprise segment and have managed to win some good strategic large enterprise accounts. Our strategy to work on enterprise segment is 2 fold i.e. offer to the customers’ non-endpoint solutions & services including Security for Virtualisation, Security for Storage, Industrial Security, Cyber Security Training, Threat Intelligence Services, Anti APT solution etc. In parallel, we are also approaching national level partners & system integrators who have specialised in security services.
