Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 22 | Page 53

EXPERT SPEAK So, there are more vendors, more products etc. If you go to RSA, there are 1,400/1,500 vendors – it’s mind bogglingly complicated so I think that’s a challenge. And also, that then exacerbates the talent challenge because you’ve got more stuff to protect, you need more skills to do so and there’s only so many multi-functional skills someone can have. we can have joint growth plans with. And then the third area is our distributors, who represent us at volume as well. So those are the three tiers. There’ll also be a real focus on market expansion and new business. We sell an architecture and customers who get the most value from what we do don’t buy one or two things, they buy four or five or six different categories from us and they get that integrated systems value. So really working with our partners to incentivise them, enable them and drive them to do that with our customers. Then there’s the threat landscape. It’s not just sophisticated threats and the ever- increasing sophistication of the Dark Web and the bad actor communities and the public-private partnerships in the Dark, Dark Web, but also the volume of attacks – there’s just so many of them. And some of them are pretty basic, just keeping up with basic block and tackle patching is pretty hard. And again, I think with that threat landscape and that complexity, there’s also the talent piece – that if you’ve got complex systems to defend, you can’t detect at the pace you need to and act upon that. And therefore, you need humans, but humans can’t operate at the pace that digital crime can. So, there’s a real morass of challenges for customers to face. I think the most notable trend across the region – including the Middle East as well – is the march towards cloud. I think that’s massive. It’s almost not newsworthy it’s so well known but I think there are some really interesting things within that. When you look at the role of a CIO or even a CISO, the role is changing because of cloud and hybrid infrastructure. CIOs in particular are becoming architects of piecing together these cloud components and so they become the architect of these services and we need to help them with that. What do you see as the key talking points as we move into 2019? The common themes that I’ve seen for more than the last six years are complexity, talent and the threat landscape. And those are kind of enduring trends. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing that they were, it means that they’re worse than they were. INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS Issue 22 lp ot t, P res i What key trends have you seen in the region in 2018? start line. If you don’t sell, then it’s just cost, so really going to market with them is the first tier. Second tier is our regional partnerships. Different countries have different important partners, so we need to make sure we’re not dealing with millions of them but really focusing in on the few in a country that really want to co-invest and d en t, EM EA McAfee If we don’t build trust with the right set of partners, they’re never going to be able to transact at the volumes required in order to repilicably use their billable skills. Take talent. There are fewer people now – there is a greater deficit of talent today. Three years ago, we said there was a deficit of one million practitioners, now we see that at three million. On complexity it’s getting harder, there are more and more complex systems – we have operations technology, IoT, sensors are coming in. The infrastructure that organisations are looking to protect is getting more complicated but at the same time the systems they use to protect that has also got more complicated. Is ensuring a diverse workforce set to remain a key part of your strategy? It will because I care about it – it matters to me. We talk about our company values and our ‘why – why are we doing this?’ and of course we are doing it to earn a living and support our families and so on but there are many places we can earn a living. We’re doing it here because we believe in the purpose of the company. And part of that value system is also around having a team that reflects the nature of society we’re seeking to serve. And I applaud what the UK government is doing as well – it’s not about quotas but being visible, how do you compare to other organisations? I think that’s a really good thing. ˜ 53