Data explosion is one of the major challenges for CXOs

Anand Choudha, the Managing Director at Spectrami, speaks to Channel Post MEA about advanced security threat protection.

Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami.
Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami.

How was GITEX for Spectrami?
GITEX has always been special for us in so many ways. This year, our theme at GITEX was advanced security threat protection. So, we had various technologies on board that can help customers with securing their data, such as DLP, vulnerability management, and so on.

On the storage side of things, we work with Actifio and we are introducing Violin, which is a leader in flash storage space with 19% market share. We are also bringing in Good Technology that focuses on mobile data management and so on.

These solutions are what customers want today and hence channel partners are looking at bringing these kind of technologies on board to help them sell more to their customers.

What sort of challenges do CXOs face today?
One of the major challenges CXOs face today is managing risks. There has been so much of advanced security threats that it takes time and efforts to identify the right technology to secure data in an optimal way. There are so many vendors out there that offer these solutions. However, zeroing-in on the right solution is a challenge on its own.

To get the right solution, CXOs need to identify their key objectives, what sort of data they produce, where do they store their data, and so on. For instance, the banking sector has a different set of challenges, and so does the government, or oil and gas sector.

Traditional technologies such as firewalls, IPS, and so on, do not work anymore at an optimum level to protect humongous data today. You need to have different mechanisms and technologies in place to face up to the security challenges of today.

Managing the skills is another challenge for CXOs. Having to right resources to manage these solutions onsite, to analyse the threat landscape and act accordingly, and so on are also challenges.

Is data explosion a challenge for CXOs?
Data explosion is indeed one of the major challenges the CXO faces today across the region. The bigger challenge is they don’t even know that data explosion is happening. They don’t see that production data is growing so much.

And to manage that is becoming an increasing task. From a data perspective, one of the major challenges is to have an idea on return on investments. CXOs also need to understand how can they optimise their current resources. Some of the solutions we offer address those challenges.

How do you compare security threats in the Middle Eastern and Africa markets?
The infrastructure in the Middle East is far better than most of Africa. Companies here have already deployed the basic infrastructure in the last several years. The basic level of networking and the basic level of security is also in place. And they are now looking at addressing advanced security threats.

In Africa though, companies are still looking at implementing the basic IT infrastructure now. Unless you have basic infrastructure in place, you won’t be able to deploy solutions that address advanced security issues.

The three core markets for Spectrami are UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Oman has also been a good market for us. While many companies are focusing on the SMB market, we mostly focus on the enterprise segment.

We are a 100% channel driven company. We actively engage with channel partners. We have a partner on-boarding process, through which we don’t just recruit partners. We also train them continuously for them to understand new technologies that can help them in selling better.

Comments

Comments