IDC: Channel key to success for security vendors in A/NZ

According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Managed Security Services Study, the managed security services market will significantly outperform the overall ICT outsourcing and managed services market. It is expected to exceed US$604 million in 2008, representing a 20.4 percent increase over 2007; and reach US$1.1 billion in 2012, with a five-year CAGR of 17.1 percent.

“Enterprises can no longer ignore security spending given the increasingly sophisticated and rapidly evolving security threats,” said Adrian Dominic Ho, research manager, Asia Pacific Managed Services and Enterprises Networks at IDC.

“Today, managed security services are no longer simply about firewalls and anti viruses. Enterprises are looking for crisis management, disaster recovery and business continuity services to ensure 24/7 uptime of their business in the event of a significant business disruption. For service providers, this will be the ultimate cash cow. The managed security market has written itself a new chapter.”

He added that creating and executing a business continuity plan to respond to any form of crisis is a very costly endeavour and not many enterprises will be able to afford it.

“The million dollar question is can enterprises survive a public scrutiny when there is a severe disruption to their business?”

In the APEJ region, IDC expects managed security adoption to be strongest in mature services markets like Australia, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. The analyst firm also predicted the recent flurry of managed security product launches, as well as acquisitions and partnerships, demonstrates that managed services service providers are strategically positioning themselves to take advantage of this market.

“In the past, spending on managed security was like buying an insurance policy, something that is good to have,” said Ho. “This mindset has changed as enterprises realised that the threats out there are real but, more importantly, the chronic shortage of skilled security professional has made the need to adopt managed security services even more compelling.”