Channel Post speaks with Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG about the company’s business model and market strategies for 2017.
Give us a brief overview about your company.
Help AG is a strategic information security consulting company, founded in Germany in 1995. Since its establishment in the Middle East in 2004, Help AG has maintained a sole focus on advanced IT security services and solutions. Maintaining an unprecedented 80% of staff in technical positions has enabled us to stand out as the region’s trusted advisor capable of delivering the most complex and innovative IT security solutions spanning every aspect of enterprise IT security including Application Security, Network Security, Enterprise Mobile Security and Next Generation Modern Malware Protection.
We have for a long time been diversifying our business in line with IT consumption models. For Help AG, the build-up of our services portfolio has been a steady process that has helped us maintain a consistently high level of quality with each new service offering. This contrasts other SIs that have been late to recognize the trends and therefore scrambled to bring services to market that are not grounded in a solid technical competency.
What markets are you currently present in?
We established our regional headquarters in Dubai and have gradually expanded our presence in a strategic manner. We now have offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh from where we service the entire Middle East region. Each of our offices is a fully staffed operational hub and not just a sales office.
Which industry verticals do you cater to?
We serve some of the most high-profile public and private organizations in the region. 38% of our business is related to government, 28% to banking and finance, 12% to oil and gas, 8% to defence and airspace, 8% to Groups of companies and 6% from other verticals.
What is the workforce strength of your organization?
We have 130 employees and still maintain 80-20 technical to sales ratio for our staff. Because of this, we have an unmatched level of technical expertise and are capable of offering services in a manner that no other organization can in the region.
What products, solutions, brands and services do you represent and offer in the markets you are present in?
Our organization is broadly divided into five departments namely, Managed Security Services (MSS), Cyber Security Integration, Cyber Security Consulting, Cyber Security Analysis and Cyber Security Support.
Managed Security Services: The services we offer to our customers include 24×7 Security Monitoring, Security Event Management and Incident Response, Managed Remediation Services, Managed Web Defence (Application Layer DDOS, Anti-Defacement, Anti-Phishing), Managed Web Application Firewall, Managed Vulnerability Assessments and Managed Endpoint Security.
Cyber Security Integration: We have 21 vendor partners in our portfolio. We deliver turn-key security solutions and infrastructure projects in all phases from conceptualization to planning, implementation and operation. We are constantly extending our partnerships with existing and new vendors while also eliminating technologies are no longer perceived as being best-in-class security products. Added to this, Help AG’s technical experts are capable of extensive in-house development and enhancement of vendor solutions to meet the precise requirements of our customers even when vendor solutions fall short of expectations.
Cyber Security Consulting: Our Strategic Security Consulting team delivers IS Governance & Compliance; Risk Management; for Business Continuity & Data Classification; and Information Assurance & Business Resiliency.
Cyber Security Support: All members of our support team are fully certified on all the major vendor platforms we offer to our clients. We provide locally delivered 24/7 assistance to our customers who can not only open service request tickets via phone, email and web, but can also avail of our onsite services around the clock within a 2-hour response time in the UAE.
What are your market strategies for year 2017?
At Help AG, we have identified and outlined three corporate strategic initiatives for 2017. These are:
- Focus on existing markets, UAE and Qatar, driven and measured against quality delivery and customer excitement.
- Capitalize on our geographical expansion into KSA and secure new business in the Kingdom
- Drive uptake of our Managed Security Services (MSS). Offerings such as MSS enable us to really engage deeply and more consistently with customers. This opens up the possibility of addressing new areas in their security infrastructures that they had not previously given thought to.
Do you participate at trade shows such as GITEX?
While we do attend GITEX as visitors, but given our focus on IT security, we have instead been a regular participant at GISEC and since its inception in the region, we have always had one of the biggest stands at the show. We also participate in eCrime and other industry events.
In addition, we host our quarterly Security Spotlight Forum Events in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh. We conduct this unique series of events without the involvement of any vendors thus allowing us to inform and educate our customers about the latest threats and trends in the market without having to focus on particular solutions or vendor technologies.
