Here’s the interview snippet from the interaction with Mr. Debasish Mukherjee – Vice President, Regional Sales, APJ at SonicWall
Jahnavi– How do you think Sonicwall performs better than its competitors? What would you denote as some aspects that distinguish SonicWall from its opponents?
Debasish– It’s a very interesting question. There are almost 200 vendors working in the tech industry. When we talk about the overall solution, I think no one is offering everything but on the other hand, only a handful of vendors are there who tend to offer various and rather uncommon solutions in general. Sonicwall, is one of them. For more than three decades now, Sonicwall has been working for the better by innovating and focusing on the demands of the customers. We have been inventing end number of technologies and so around 10 years back we brought a technology which no one had ever thought about and no one talked about inspecting encrypted traffic. Today, everyone is talking about the encrypted traffic as this has increased more than 90%. This clarifies our vision which is to bring in new technologies for the better. Around a few years back we also led a new technology which was called real time deep memory technology. Majority of the vendors are circling around and playing or managing the known activities and leaving the unknown as it is. We tend to focus on them both. This is not only Sonicwall but the third party agencies like the icsa lab reports constantly proving that Sonicwall is offering 100% detection rate and that is what makes Sonicwall different from its competitors.
Jahnavi-What are your recent channel network strengths?
Debasish– Sonicwall is a 100% channel organisation and we have a pool of trusted partners with whom we are working for more than two decades. Globally, we have 17,000+ transacting partners and then again it is growing. We are putting a lot of efforts on developing our channels since we all are understanding, we have to go through a channel to understand and trust. Our CEO- Bob Vankirk, had come with a project called Outside In. This means whatever we are talking about to a partner or a customer, they are the right person to give us the information of what is demanded. So this proves the importance of channel here.
Jahnavi- How do you think the Cybersecurity market is budding post-pandemic? What according to you are the few of the major growth prospects here when also considering the increasing number of the Cyber incidents?
Debasish– Globally, various industries are trying to digitise their networks for so many years but I think Covid has pushed us all towards the digitisation. When any organisation is moving towards a digital environment, ofcourse then you have more chances of getting attacked. Due to covid, we all had to work from home and now it is a new norm whether it is acceptable or not, it is the new norm. When considering digitisation, in this situation, the responsibility is entirely on the cyber security organisations like ours. There are numerous risks and when focusing on our report, it clearly shows how the number of the attacks have been increasing during the covid. At Sonicwall, we consider it as a responsibility or rather than any opportunity which is to protect our customers.
Jahnavi- The increasing number of the cybercriminals are rather concerning when considered how they select as well as attack their targets and also since the technologies are gaining immense popularity, how do you think the companies can be more cautious and proactive in toughening of their cybersecurity posture?
Debasish– It is a slightly complex subject. The security or its posture is rather different. It is not only one or investment between the hardware or software but it is a combination of assets about how and what are the services used, information which one tends to get and everything else. All of the customers must know their infrastructure and what’s happening and how to control any incident. These are the things which Sonicwall focuses on a lot. In simpler term, the customer should always look for how to protect and how can one find out what is going on in a particular network. These areas are where the customer should look into and protect their posture.
Jahnavi- What according to you are the obstructions faced by the IT industries mostly related to the cyber security related issues? And what are the possible solutions to put an end to the cyber crimes?
Debasish– First of all, we can never put this to an end. This war between the cyber criminals and the cyber security organisations continues. The area which we focus is how to control and dig out the attacks. This can never come to an end and it might grow more and more. Each and every year in this industry, I myself see various ways how it tends to grow and the number of attacks increases. The major bottleneck in the cyber security is the human factor. It is not only any other software but this. Whatsoever technology is invented, eventually the user is a human and majority of these issues are created by the human either during its making or by implementing it. Knowledge and the negligence, both, we have to work more and more and invest in the training. It is a huge investment on the training factors and development. Technology is for sure important, but it cannot solve each and everything. We know several examples where we had offered the perfect product but since it wasn’t implemented correctly, it failed. A lot of reports are available that it’s not the technology but the humans.
Jahnavi-What do you contemplate is the necessity for the unlimited security plus how does APAC respond to the diverse security threats throughout the period of the pandemic?
Debasish– Each and every country behave differently because of their cultures and a lot many factors. In the beginning of covid for example, Japan and Australia’s sales had increased a lot because these are the mature markets and understood the situation well in advance. Whereas in the south Asian countries, the probability of them going into the observer mode and understand how this can keep on moving and after that they started investing. The necessity of the unlimited security. So, the necessity is to understand the situation. The complexity had increased when covid came and the organisation had to understand what is exactly to be done and what is to be avoided. The only solution is to implement the right solution and focus on their business. All of the solutions are also available and that’s what the customers are always looking for.
