Finally the verdict is in. Indian security market is mature. The necessity of adoption of the security solutions has dawned on the Indian enterprises. This has resulted in the continuous stellar growth of the security market in India despite the slowdown.
It can be said with absolute certainty that today economic growth has, to a great extent, piggybacked on the Internet boom in India as well as in other parts of the world. Hence it is no surprise that the uninterrupted connectivity is sine qua non for the sustainability of the business success. However, this ultimate tool has been a cause of concern for the enterprises. After spending a large chunk of money on the infrastructure, the enterprises feel they are not immune from the threats – threats from hacking, virus, spam, phishing, spyware, etc. Surprisingly, these malicious acts cannot be checked at all, but the effect can be nullified to the maximum extent.
The market for security checks is growing astoundingly. The enterprises from small to large are piling up software and hardware to keep their valuable assets (data) in safe custody. They are ready to add on new solutions and ideas, which can fortify their citadel.
The maturity of the Indian security market is now a truism. The necessity of adoption of the security solutions has dawned on the Indian enterprises. This has resulted in the stellar growth of the security market in India.
2009 was a banner year for cyber-thugs. Many large companies reported data thefts from their supposedly secure databases. The same fate also befell the smaller companies. They also became victims of hack attacks and virus infections.
2010 will be no better. On the contrary, the security threats may assume more ominous proportions. And, it is only to be expected. As security systems are getting more sophisticated, there is every possibility that cyber criminals will find more complex and innovative ways of keeping pace or staying ahead.
According to ZyXEL, security is in a great demand now-a-days due to increase in cyber crime, critical financial transactions and increasing competition. In India, the present state of IT security is characterized by rapid growth.
According to SonicWALL, India is the most exciting market for security appliances. As India’s economy grows, more businesses are using some kind of Internet capability, from online banking to VoIP to web-delivered service that requires Internet security solutions.
“Despite the credit crunch, information security is a key priority for CIOs everywhere, because organizations reeling in the recession can hardly afford the financial consequences of a data breach. In fact, the Gartner report also estimates that the market will continue to demonstrate good growth levels,” says Vishal Dhupar, MD, Symantec India.
The ever-evolving threat landscape has relatively insulated the information security industry from the effects of the global meltdown. According to a study recently released by Gartner, the IT security market in APAC grew at 28.3%. As the largest global player,
“We are now in the knowledge driven economy where the difference b/w organizations in similar business are "knowledge", "information" and "intellectual property rights", "knowhow's". Organization need to protect these assets which are its business differentiators to secure and grow their business in a competitive world,” says S.Sriram of iValue. He adds, “Security solutions help each organizations achieve this critical business need and hence the relevance and highest growth amongst IT solutions.”
The security landscape in India has changed. It was not so in the distant past that addressing security concerns in the country meant putting anti-virus software in place. Network security has emerged as an important issue.
In India Small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are in the process of putting some kind of security in place. As newer and more dangerous threats loom large, it is becoming increasingly clear that the segment can ill-afford to remain complacent. It is equally true in the case of the home segment. The early stages of the security industry had only large-scale enterprises or corporates opting for anti-virus solutions. Now, the trend is more and more small and mid-sized business and homes are ensuring that they have the necessary security against the various threats that are present today in the wild.
Indian enterprises are, indeed, becoming increasingly aware of the need for a better-defined security environment. However much has to be done by the SMBs in India. A survey conducted by Symantec in May 2009 found that Indian SMBs have the lowest deployment rate of security solutions across the APJ region, with less than 20 percent of IT budgets being spent on security. The survey also found that while there is a growing awareness about various threats, deployment of relevant solutions has not matched up. Inadequate budgets coupled with ineffective information security management at the operational level are stumbling blocks for most SMBs in the country.
“While, large enterprises in India are fairly aware of the importance of securing their information and have started deploying security solutions effectively to defend themselves. However, small and medium businesses still have a long way to go,” says Vishal Dhupar.
However, Sonicwall is optimist of the security deployment by the SMBs. “We have been the driving force in the adoption for UTM appliances. We have seen a lot of demand emerge from tier-2 and -3 cities,” says Sonicwall. “We have seen several large enterprises break up their networks; decentralizing them into small networks and deploying UTMs. Customers can recover their investment on security appliance in the first three months of deployment solely on savings on manpower and licensing cost,” adds Sonicwall.
As awareness of the need for IT security increases with geometrical progression, the customers are demanding security solutions. But what is more pertinent to note is that they hardly seem to be aware of what exactly they want. This leaves it up to the resellers to play a very significant role in providing the right solutions. And, this merits a serious security know-how in the channel.
“Large and Small customer are looking at consolidating IT vendors on one side and we see many new niche vendors coming in to market looking up to us to establish them with little or no India presence on the other side. We play the key role to arrive at the right balance between these two conflicting needs which is a continuous challenge,” says S.Sriram.
“Security being relatively a new market and hence has lot of small/niche players. Being a fast growing space, lot of consolidation happen on the vendor side creating new challenges on the distribution models. Some of the technologies after acquisition is dealt very differently by the new entity negating efforts of VAD and partners who have put lot of blood and sweat to bring these solutions to limelight as it is toughest to manage brands at an early stage of their life cycle,” adds S.Sriram.
The key differentiator for iValue is its unique three pronged Go-To-Market strategy, highly differentiated & aligned to provide robust and scalable delivery models for solutions through their entire solution life cycle stages. “Value Added Services is our favourite where we provide Consulting, Auditing, Compliance, Design, Review and Implementation services thru our Partners. iValue is pioneering VAS business delivery thru partner’s and we are happy to share that it has been very well received both by customers and partners. We wish to help our partners enhance profitable business at each of their customer base thru our VAS offerings,” says S.Sriram.
The network security provider SonicWALL remains committed to both its channel partners and end-users, through the delivery of great products and the introduction of industry leading offers. Customer Advantage Program is a testament to this as SonicWALL pass on savings to the user in return for a longer-term commitment from them, as well as adding new security solutions to the existing program thereby giving our partners the tools they need to protect their customers.
SonicWALL recently launched Customer Advantage Program (CAP), further emphasizing our commitment to provide customers with more choice, cost savings and flexibility. “The new initiative, which will include the simplification and expansion of its Secure Upgrade and Unified Threat Management (UTM) Trade-up Programs, will help customers save on upgrade and competitive replacement costs across the entire product line, says SonicWALL. “The new Secure Upgrade Plus offering also provides partners with the opportunity to provide clients effective protection over time with minimal hassle. SonicWALL will also reward loyal qualifying customers with preferred bundle pricing, through the introduction of a new program element, the Customer Loyalty Bundle,” adds SonicWALL. ZyXEL as a brand had understood this threat and had shown its commitment of delivering cost effective value for money product by developing state of the art security appliance USG product line to address the customers security requirement, ZyXEL USG product is a gateway level security appliance which secure corporate network from security threats and offers redundancy. Dealing in security products is a great opportunity in this country and will need a lot of thorough study and understanding about the Indian market to invest resources in R&D, New feature development, after sales support, cost of infrastructure, manpower investment, for after sales support etc a fair amount of margin needs to be calculated, margins also cannot be very high due to high level of competition in the industry.
Microworld, the company that has made its name selling security solutions and has forged successful technology relationships with leading distributors including Shani Peripherals is now looking at a more aggressive act in the Indian market. MicroWorld provides an extensive range of real time antivirus and content security software solutions, for desktops and servers, under the brand name eScan.
MicroWorld has become aggressive in pushing its products and solution in the country in the last two and half years. Though we have been established out of India, but we have become active more in the last two and half years.
“We have been actively participating in the major seminars conferences across the country. We have done 25 city roadshow previous year and this year the number is going to increase to 30. In addition to this we have done various other channel events on national level, attended by distributors, SIs and solutions providers,” says Anil Gupta, Head – National Sales, MicroWorld.
The flagship product, eScan 10 of MicroWorld provides comprehensive protection against Viruses, Worms, Trojans, Spyware and other Security Threats and also protect from threats infecting via email, web downloads, chatting etc. by its faster and heuristic scanning ability.
The company's portfolio of security solutions have won numerous awards and certifications from Virus Bulletin, Checkmark and TUCOWS to name a few, and are sought after by consumers for their user friendly interfaces, robust technology and reliable solutions.
The vendor provides solutions that enable a better way to thwart security threats, and reduce risk using numerous features in a single, unified architecture, a value proposition that the users in a recession hit era will find compelling.
That’s the reason that MicroWorld has done extremely well during the recession that has engulfed the economy. “As far as the performance in the first six months of 2009 is concerned, we have done very well in spite of the recession,” said Anil Gupta, Head – National Sales, MicroWorld.
Today every vertical from BFSI to telecom, healthcare and manufacturing is under threat from potential attackers who are targeting them to reap financial gain. This trend is being observed across geographies.
Moreover, information is unquestionably the most valuable asset of organizations, regardless of the vertical in which they operate. Sectors like banking, telecom and healthcare are particularly faced with a pressing need to secure and manage confidential data across their networks and endpoints.
Companies therefore need to take the right measures to minimize their exposure to risk and increase IT efficiency. It is now increasingly observed that enterprises in India [especially in the Banking and Financial Sector, Telecom sector, Healthcare sector and IT and ITeS sectors] have demonstrated willingness and success in leveraging technology to protect their most vital corporate assets. “Considering that enterprises of every size and from every vertical needs to invest in security, Gartner estimates that the worldwide security software revenue will increase from nearly $8.3 billion in 2006 to more than $13.5 billion in 2011,” says Vishal Dhupar.
SonicWALL addresses various verticals, including BFSI, Government, retail, Education, Internet Service Provider (ISP), and Healthcare Organizations. “Regardless of your vertical industry, SonicWALL has a solution tailored to your specific needs,” says SonicWALL.
“Financial institutions, Education, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Defence, Railways and Telecom are few of the prominent verticals we are addressing at the moment,” says ZyXEL.
As the number one security software vendor in the world, Symantec truly has a global presence in terms of employees, business partners and customers. Today, Symantec is one of the world’s largest software companies with more than 17,500 employees in more than 40 countries. The company provides security, storage and systems management solutions to help its customers – from consumers and small businesses to the largest global organizations – secure and manage their information-driven world against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently than any other companyFinally… It goes without saying that what holds good for the security vendors is equally applicable to their channel partners as well.
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It can be said with absolute certainty that today economic growth has, to a great extent, piggybacked on the Internet boom in India as well as in other parts of the world. Hence it is no surprise that the uninterrupted connectivity is sine qua non for the sustainability of the business success. However, this ultimate tool has been a cause of concern for the enterprises. After spending a large chunk of money on the infrastructure, the enterprises feel they are not immune from the threats – threats from hacking, virus, spam, phishing, spyware, etc. Surprisingly, these malicious acts cannot be checked at all, but the effect can be nullified to the maximum extent. 
