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Ajay Verma
Director, Channel & Alliances
Symantec India
The corporate world is growing increasingly complex, and two reasons for this are the growth of information and the complexity of infrastructure that an organization must deal with.
Today’s business environment is characterized by the demand for real-time information. This puts enormous pressure on businesses and their IT departments when you consider three variables—the compounding amount of information that companies have to store, secure and manage; the growing complexity of infrastructure within the organization; and the diversity of government and industry regulations with which organizations must comply.
As IT budgets are tightened due to the current economic conditions, many companies are shifting their focus to finding more efficient technologies that manage complexity while reducing the resources required. In such times, organization will have to rely heavily on:
Storage. Companies will have to use storage more efficiently.
Information risk management. Data loss prevention will become even more important as companies try to prevent important information from walking out of the door with their employees.
Increased automation. Whether through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or automating compliance tasks across the organization.
Set of challenges
Companies are being pressed to secure and manage the growing volumes of data on physical and virtual systems. The risks they face include
- Security risks from internal and external threats.
- Risks of non-compliance with external regulations and internal governance policies.
- Risks from natural disasters and systems outages.
- Risks from poor IT service levels.
Data protection and information security have therefore acquired greater significance.
On the data protection front, organizations are challenged with managing their disk backup storage growth and improving the speed and ease of recovery of application data. This leads to increased complexity for IT administrators.
With information security, organizations are addressing security and risk in silos, with groups implementing distinct and often disconnected processes and technologies to mitigate the risks. These risks are often interconnected, but the processes and technologies are not.
To lower operational costs and make security more effective, proactive and measurable, enterprises will have to ensure that security is embedded throughout business processes from the start. Policies have to be consistently defined and socialized before controls can be put in place. The most successful companies look at policy first, then implement the technology to automate it—not the other way around.
By operationalizing security—standardizing, automating and driving down the cost of day-to-day security activities—companies can be much more proactive when it comes to protection.
Customer focus
Organizations of all sizes are challenged with managing their disk backup and storage growth, and improving the speed and ease of recovery of application data. This leads to more complexity. Companies will therefore benefit from cross-product integration as it allows for improved manageability and an enhanced user experience. This will enable organizations to implement one scalable data protection/backup strategy that will grow with the organization.
Maximize IT resources. Without an effective backup and recovery solution, a business risks losing all its data in the event of occurrences such as a disaster or non-compliance with data retention rules. No organization can afford to take this kind of risk.
Consider server virtualization. Companies are witnessing a strain on their existing servers. In 2009 they will place greater focus on consolidating space and lowering costs. Organizations are looking at virtualization to maximize their assets.
Minimize downtime. The cost of downtime can be high. SMBs will embrace SaaS solutions to help mitigate possible downtime due to a disaster or employee mistake. By working with a SaaS provider for backup, organizations can eliminate the burden of maintaining, operating and supporting backup software and hardware.
Not allow threats compromise the network. Today’s organizations face a threat landscape that involves stealthy, targeted and financially-motivated attacks aimed at exploiting vulnerabilities at the endpoints, hence companies will look to new protection technologies to manage and secure these endpoints.
Tips for partners
Here are some tips that may help partners to keep their business competitive in 2009.
Get acquainted. With vendor solutions and offerings. By understanding the products and how they play together, solution providers (SPs) can frame the conversation with customers, and improve customer satisfaction by providing more complete solutions. Companies are looking for trusted brands to carry them through the downturn, and SPs can help customers save time and money by being better informed about vendor solutions.
Partner with other SPs. Know your strengths, and partner to shore up weaknesses. Partnering with other SPs who can provide complementary skill-sets will meet the customer’s needs and open the door to expanding sales.
Take advantage of vendor tools. Sales tools, collateral and training material. These are critical when approaching customers and highlighting the competitive advantage the products offer. By using these resources, SPs can remain competitive.
Match vendor programs with your business strengths. Take time to understand vendor programs and incentives. SPs need to take full advantage of the most profitable programs that meet their businesses’ needs and goals. By knowing which programs fit their business models, SPs will make better margins.
Communicate with vendors. Stay connected to vendors through continual communication to ensure that the SPs’ needs are being met. SPs are the much-needed ground support to help vendors understand what is working and what is not. By establishing a strong relationship with vendors, SPs will be able to respond to customers’ needs more quickly.
Bottomline
We don’t think any company is immune to its customers’ challenges during tough economic times. But we do think customers will chose this moment to both rationalize the products they use and the vendors they buy from.
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