Digital transformation is disrupting businesses across the globe as digital infrastructure becomes pivotal for the success and survival post-Covid-19. Over the years since the pandemic hit, we have witnessed a huge surge in digital platforms and tools used in business operations which in turn has increased the risk of cyberattacks. At this junction, the role of next-gen cyber security solution provider plays a significant role. Here is an interview with Debasish Mukherjee, Vice President, Regional Sales, APJ at SonicWall sharing his views on the cybersecurity market post-pandemic, threats to businesses, key cybersecurity recommendations, and how SonicWall can help organizations overcome these challenges.
How is the Cybersecurity market evolving post-pandemic in the light of the new remote working models? What sort of growth opportunities do you see here amidst an alarming surge in the number of Cyber incidents?
A never seen phenomenon that the Pandemic brought on to the world was the need for everything to go digital. The need for digital infrastructure became pivotal for businesses and personal lives.
Over the years since the pandemic, there’s been a huge surge in communications and the wholesale shift to operate businesses online which has increased the risk of cyberattacks by an order of magnitude. The need for always-on surveillance and real-time risk analysis for breaches at both physical and digital entry points has become a necessity than an option.
Recently, SonicWall released its 2022 Cyber Threat Report which shows that there has been a sustained meteoric rise in ransomware with 623.3 million attacks globally. Nearly all monitored threats, cyberattacks, and malicious digital assaults rose in 2021 including ransomware, encrypted threats, IoT malware, and crypto-jacking. India witnessed an exponential 981% increase in ransomware attacks in 2021 (2020- 388,461compared to 2021- 4,198,632).
According to a report, the global cyber security market size was valued at $197.36 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $478.68 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2021 to 2030.
In the light of this huge need demand, every organization needs to secure information in what we call the boundless world since the boundaries of organizations are today ever-expanding to limitless endpoints and networks.
SonicWall has been on top of this game providing integrated cyber security solutions to customers to make their businesses continue safely and seamlessly. SonicWall products, services, and innovative technology help secure thousands of organizations globally and are consistently recognized by industry leaders for ease of use and security efficacy.
SonicWall will continue to expand its business across regions through its state-of-the-art-next-gen cyber security solutions and the wide network of partners who are a crucial part of the organisation.
Please share on SonicWall’s growth momentum in 2021 in terms of revenue/market share? What are the company’s focus areas in India going forward?
SonicWall recently announced that year 2021 was its best-ever year with record levels of sales and profitability. The company also witnessed a substantial increase in demand for its products and solutions including its Generation 7 next-generation firewalls.
Despite a difficult economic climate, the company posted strong financial results strengthening its pipeline growth, including a 33% increase in new customer growth and generating a 45% increase in new customer sales. Additionally, SonicWall has seen incredible growth in cloud-delivered products and services, which are up 36% year-over-year. Plus, new Generation 7 products have represented 90% of sales over the past year.
Other business achievements :
- Double-digit growth across all customer segments- from SMBs to enterprise and government customers.
- Over 90% customer retention rate
- 10% increase in partner annual recurring revenue
- 34% growth in new customer unit volume, with a 40% increase in per-transaction value
Offering its next-gen cyber security solutions, SonicWall will continue to expand into new regions focusing on large enterprises while also partnering with SMBs in the education and government sector in particular.
To achieve this, SonicWall recently introduced three new high-performance firewall models — NSa 5700, NSsp 10700, and NSsp 11700 that were designed to protect the largest and most complex enterprises, government agencies, and MSSPs from advanced cyberattacks, including ransomware and never-before-seen malware, without sacrificing network performance.
What are some factors that differentiate SonicWall from competitors in the same line of business?
SonicWall orchestrates a complex and broad product offering by aligning Agile Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) best practices to its customers. This involveshandling design to deployment, ensuring the highest product quality, integrity, and security of products for the clientele.
The combination of mission-critical layered cyber defense, threat intelligence, analysis, and collaboration, along with common management, reporting, and analytics that work synchronously together enable us to stand strong as market leaders.
Further to this, The SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service, which includes patented Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI) technology, is one of its kind in the industry that catches some of the most advanced and unknown malware faster. This enables our teams to be better prepared to combat such threats in record time.
This is one of the only solutions to receive five consecutive perfect scores in ICSA Labs Advanced Threat Defense (ATD) certification testing across the last four quarters. ICSA Labs is an independent third party that tested SonicWall’s solutions using never-before-seen malware samples.
Which major industry verticals are you focusing on currently to push your growth?
We have been very successful in bridging cybersecurity gaps for enterprises, governments, and SMBs worldwide by providing real-time visibility and enabling breakthrough economics.
Our focus would continue to partner with larger enterprises while also working with SMBs in the education and government sector.
Organizations still hold back investing in cybersecurity solutions, any new trends you have noticed post-pandemic. What are the key cybersecurity recommendations SonicWall would make to CIOs/CISOs?
Last few years, we saw technology playing a pivotal role in the way businesses operated. Everything including work culture moved into a virtual world. Today most companies are collecting and processinghuge amounts of sensitive customer data, therefore it is imperative to ensure the safety and privacy of that information.
At SonicWall, we believe that organizations need tosecure their public/private cloud, applications, users, and data with a deep level of protection that won’t compromise network performance. Solutions need to tightly integrate security, management, analytics, and real-time threat intelligence across the company’s portfolio of network, wireless, email, mobile, web, and cloud security products. This approach will enable small and mid-sized businesses, to large enterprise environments, government, retail point-of-sale, education, healthcare, and service providers to stay protected with a complete security ecosystem that harnesses the power, agility, and scalability of the cloud.
With any cyber threat, the first and last line of defense is prepared leaders and employees, whether they are inside an organization or part of an interconnected supply chain. Employees must adhere to the established data IT security policies, whichcan onlyhappen when regular education and training programs are held.
What is your current channel network strength? Please share details of your Partner Program and the various activities undertaken with them to drive business growth.
Our global family of SonicWall SecureFirst partners, including MSSPs, are the lifeblood of our business. As a 100% channel-driven organisation, our goal is always to educate and empower our partners, while providing them with cutting-edge and cost-effective solutions for a strong cybersecurity framework.
The company also has other opportunities such as the SonicWall University, which is an online partner enablement platform designed to keep SecureFirst partner sales representatives, pre-sales, and support engineers at the forefront of both cyber threats and security solutions. This free, on-demand online training portal offers pathways for partners to earn SecureFirst Sales and Technical Accreditations that directly influence increased revenue attainment.
Also, our SonicWall MSSP program empowerspartners, VARs, and MSSPs with resources and tools they need to protect their customers while improving operational efficiency and costs.
Today we are a strong team of over 17000 partners in various regions across the globe of which 2500 partners are based in India. Created and produced exclusively for SonicWall partners, Boundless is the company’s global virtual partner experience annual event that provides unparalleled content, insight, and expert analysis to help partners succeed. The attendance for the current 2022 event was up 16% to the previous years, with over 47,000 live reactions throughout the content. We are happy to share that SonicWall has been repeatedly awarded a prestigious 5-star rating in the Partner Program Guide by CRN, a brand of The Channel Company
