Security Rumble

Most companies want to protect their investments, whether it is investment in bandwidth, intellectual resources, the productivity of its workers or the need to protect legal liabilities.

When making a pitch to a potential customer, security channel partners weigh up which is the best approach: to talk up the technology, the economics, the protection of information and business processes, or their qualifications and reputation.

According to Spheritec’s managing director David Glavonjic, we need to move away from the technology sale, the realm of “Would you like some antispam software, some antiphishing software?”

“That’s the kind of dialogue you have when you’re talking to an IT expert, but talking to business people, they want to know how to protect the business, how to improve profitability, how to reduce costs, how not to get wiped out in a flood. It’s all about business, it’s not about technology,” Glavonjic says.

With bird flu visiting our close neighbours such as Indonesia, pandemic planning is all the rage in government arena.

David Simpson, managing director of security specialist firm CQR Consulting, says detailed pandemic planning includes IT along with health and transport considerations.

“The IT side of things is to equip companies to be able to work remotely. We were in Singapore during the SARS outbreak and nobody wanted to go to work, no-one wanted to go on public transport, but needed to keep businesses going,” Simpson says.

Companies of all sizes could benefit from some planning and systems in place to make sure their IT infrastructure is going to hold up, and employees are able to work remotely without jeopardising IT security.

Some say resellers and integrators can benefit from adding the ‘compliance’ angle to the productivity angle, but others are tired of the compliance push already.

It seems an increasing number of channel partners are wheeling out the compliance angle, but some question the value of using compliance as a pitch. Cisco’s regional manager for advanced technologies and new markets, Kevin Bloch, says he does not know many resellers who could argue they are making money by using compliance as a sales tool.

“If the customer is in the finance segment, then it’s pretty clear they’ve got to comply. And if you’re a sales person in that segment and you don’t know much about it, then you’ll see the door very quickly,” he says.

While we have to acknowledge compliance is around for good, Bloch says the last thing we should be doing is driving that down the throats of customers.

An emerging sales pitch focuses on identity and projects around access management.

There is a lot of potential for the channel to help organisations audit and control the use of removable, ‘lifestyle’ devices such as iPods, USB sticks, PDAs and digital cameras.

Cisco's Bloch: Resellers not using compliance as a sales tool

“Whether it’s a small or large organisation, there are risks because someone can walk in and out of an organisation carrying data [via] removable media devices, and bypass the organisation’s IT security systems,” says Howard Waterson, regional manager APAC, Centennial Software.

There are more and more products coming out now to tackle this growing security risk. These products give organisations the ability to audit those removable devices, survey all the activity associated with them, and put controls in place to curb risky usage behaviours.

Waterson says most organisations are astonished when they see the amount of activity involving removable devices, and the potential security implications. “It makes people’s jaw drop,” he says.