CEOs driving security change

Security’s move from an IT driven ‘bottom up’ discussion to a chief executive ‘top down’ discussion, and demand for consolidated security offerings, are driving renewed interest in security — and ambitious Kiwi growth plans for security company, Websense.

Gerry Tucker, Websense ANZ country manager, says he’s looking for ‘significant double digit’ growth from the New Zealand market in the coming year. “Our New Zealand customer base is still relatively small so we see significant opportunity for growth. New Zealand really is an emerging market for us. Even though it’s a mature market, we’re not where we are in Australia and so there is significant growth potential.”

Last month the company hired its first local territory manager for New Zealand, with Simone Neunz, formerly software services manager at Gen-i appointed to the new role. “Having a presence here will help us drive strong growth,” Tucker says. “And from a channel perspective having Simone here will help us engage earlier with them and drive increased margins and revenue.”

Tucker says two key factors are driving interest in security and growth for the company.

“One thing that has changed is that security was traditionally a bottom up discussion, with IT managers trying to drive the security into the business. But now, thanks to the well publicised data breaches of the past 12-18 months, we’re seeing the discussion driven from the top down as chief executives and boards of directors express concern,” Tucker says.

“On top of that you’ve got the increasing aspect of social media and Web 2.0, combined with mobility and cloud. Security at the perimeter of organisations is, at best, perforated and highly dispersed. And one of the topics we’re hearing is that organisations are looking to consolidate their security solution into a more consolidated offering.”

Five years ago Websense began investigating heavily consolidated solutions are something they embarked on five years ago with a half billion US dollar investment to create its Triton solution offering complementary Web and email security along with data leakage prevention.

Tucker says selling is also changing for the 100% channel company, with a move from transactional to solution sales.