Channel Post speaks to Florian Malecki, the EMEA Marketing Director at Dell SonicWall, about the security market in the Middle East, the threats companies face and the security solutions available to tackle those threats
What sort of effects can IT security threats have on businesses?
Data breaches and loss of service are some of the effects businesses have to face when it is under an attack. Data breaches are always a topic of sensational news coverage, as they result in confidential information being captured and removed out of the organization into the hands of criminals or competitors. The damage caused by data breaches is visible and very painful.
They can be financial (lost revenue, legal and regulatory costs, lawsuit awards and fines), “soft” costs (loss of customer goodwill and loyalty) and loss of competitiveness (through loss in intellectual property). Companies that have suffered data breaches spend an inordinate amount of time and money in detection and technical remediation costs, identifying and blocking attacks as well as assessing damage and putting corrective measures in place.
In addition, the negative publicity over a data breach lasts far beyond the attack itself. Denial-of-service attacks result in computer systems – workstations as well as web, application or database servers – being degraded or completely disabled. As with data breaches, there’s a real cost associated with IT and support staff having to diagnose problems, coach employees, restart services and re-image PCs.
What then is Dell’s value proposition to companies that would want to safeguard its corporate network from such threats?
All our solutions work seamlessly with each other. So if you see a mobile user using a Dell corporate laptop, we have solutions embedded in it that makes sure all the applications are updated and patched from time to time. If the user would like to remotely connect to his / her corporate network while travelling, then he / she can use our SSL VPN solutions. So, access management becomes easier.
However, once you are connected through SSL VPN, you could probably be able to move corporate data to public cloud apps such as OneDrive, Dropbox, and so on. But with Dell’s data encryption and protection solutions, the firewall will make sure that an encrypted file will not leave the corporate network. So, it becomes important and easy for customers to get rid of silos and rather adopt a connected approach by using Dell’s products from top to bottom.
How does Dell work with its channel partners to ensure the “connected security” message is taken forward when interacting with customers?
The channel community is very important for Dell. In the past our products were focused on the small and medium business segment only. But now our products within the Middle East region also cover the enterprise segment. It now carries a full portfolio from high-end enterprise to small business and from centralized management software to end point security solutions.
Thus, we have introduced a wide range of channel programs to continually keep our partners abreast with the latest technologies. Dell SonicWall has instructor-led product training focusing on product positioning, objection handling, implementation scenarios and case studies. In order to improve its offering in the Middle East, Dell SonicWall has joined the Dell Partner Direct programme.
This is a robust program power-packed with important business tools to ensure partners are continually informed. Working in conjunction with this is Dell SonicWall’s partner portal, a system offering access to e-learning tracks which eventually results in sales certification.
What market strategies does Dell have in place when it comes to security solutions?
From a security standpoint, Dell’s strategy revolves around the Dell “connected security” message. Over the last couple of years obviously security was already embedded into our product in terms of software and so on.
We made a couple of acquisitions to make sure that our customers have a connected approach to the IT security strategy. Today’s customers – whether they are SMBs, mid-size companies, enterprises or public organisations – they probably have security solutions in place.
But, what we have seen is that majority of these solutions work in silos. So they don’t really interact with each other. The acquisitions we have made in the last couple of years are focused on providing full end to end security solutions.
So, for instance with Dell SonicWall we have next generation firewalls, SSL VPN and so on to offer to our customers. From a security solutions standpoint Dell is today in a position to offer true end to end security solutions to its customers.
