Latest Technology News Today – Get Latest Information Technology Updates and Services Latest Technology News Today – Get Latest Information Technology Updates and Services 
In a detailed interaction with Amit Singhon how the pandemic affected the way enterprise security works and why UEM has become critical for organizations, ApuPavithran, Founder & CEO, Mitsogo (Hexnode) highlighted the strategies which paid well during the pandemic and how the company differentiates from the competition. He also shared plans for India business and channel expansion
What prompted you to start Mitsogo?
When we found Mitsogo nine years back, in 2013, mobile devices had been gaining more prominence in the workplace. The presence of mobile devices was far too significant that a solution to manage them became an imminent need, and we knew where we had to start- a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution.
It took a lot of talking, thinking, and scrutiny to come up with Hexnode MDM. Studies pointed out that the corporate use of mobile devices was only going to increase. It was anticipated that there would eventually be applications for every use case and that these applications would sooner migrate to the cloud. The visionaries predicted a significant shift that would enable flexible working arrangements and make remote work viable. In short, a time would come when MDMs would be a sought-out solution, and we decided to invest in a market that had a huge potential in the future. Today, with the growing number of platforms, the adoption of BYOD, and the presence of IoT, we have evolved from being an MDM solution to unified endpoint management (UEM) solution.
Our flagship product is Hexnode UEM. When we launched Hexnode, we wanted to make sure to reach out to both the SMBs and large organizations alike. Our simple UI and budget-friendly solution helped us achieve the same.
At Hexnode, we help IT admins secure their corporate endpoints by pushing policies irrespective of the platforms they function on. Employees can be prevented from installing malicious applications and transferring data to external devices. Additionally, IT can also guarantee that their devices do not connect to unauthorized networks. Furthermore, admins can enforce restrictive policies and apply configurations to enhance security.
While the pandemic impacted many businesses adversely over the last two years, few of the businesses glided through the rough phase with resilient strategies. What has been your experience during the last two years of the pandemic? What are the strategies which paid well for you?
Most businesses found it challenging to collaborate and communicate amidst the pandemic. Due to the geographically dispersed nature of the workforce, ensuring that employees didn’t log on to free networks and had access to documents to maintain work continuity was difficult.
IT admins found Hexnode useful in managing all the remote corporate endpoints. IT could easily onboard users and devices with zero-touch and once enrolled, security policies including restrictions and configurations could be applied. Hexnode offered IT admins a 360-degree view of all corporate assets.
In the coming years, solutions that facilitate remote functioning will find higher demand. Our strategy is straightforward – we scaled up our product as per our customer’s needs. The new normal demanded solutions that would support a remote work culture, and we offered our customers the same. Organizations were in search of new techniques that could protect their distributed corporate assets, and with Hexnode, the issue was addressed. Moreover, employees started using their personal devices for work purposes, and it was necessary to draw a line that ensures corporate data security and user privacy. The UEM’s ability to develop individualized containers to differentiate work from play contributed to the increased adoption of the solution.
How do you differentiate from the competition? Where does Hexnode stand in today’s competitive market?
Most SMBs do not give cyber security the priority it demands. They believe that they are too small to be noticed by hackers. Nevertheless, a survey points out that 60 percent of the small and medium-sized businesses failed to resume operations within six months following the attack. We developed Hexnode with the intention to reach out to both SMBs and large organizations alike. We provide a cost-effective solution with a fundamental package priced at $1.08.
MDMs and UEMs are fairly sophisticated solutions. However, the user does not always have to be a tech-savvy IT admin. It might be a teacher in a school or a person with rudimentary IT skills in a medical facility. At Hexnode, we make sure that everyone, irrespective of their IT background, finds it easier to get their work done by offering a simple UI. In addition, with a 4-minute response time, we provide the best tech support in the market. We also have a solid knowledge base to guide clients throughout the process.
What are the top challenges enterprises face in cyber security?
One of the trends we have witnessed in the past couple of years is the mass migration of data, software, and infrastructure to the cloud. However, while the cloud offers advantages in terms of storage and scalability, it is also prone to misconfigurations and chances of compromised user accounts. According to surveys, about 27 percent of the organizations have experienced a security incident in their public infrastructure.
Despite the environmental changes, many businesses continue to protect their data using tried-and-tested methods. For instance, while the pandemic pushed devices to different geographical locations, relying on perimeter-based techniques wouldn’t provide the necessary protection. Rather, businesses have to think of adopting solutions like Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). Furthermore, with about 11.6 billion IoT devices that aren’t restricted to corporate perimeters, organizations had to scale themselves in terms of security. Techniques like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) bring together various network security solutions under a single roof to offer the same.
While the ‘Digital India’ initiative in 2015 boosted the efforts of the government to keep its citizens digitally empowered, it took the pandemic to prioritize digital growth and cyber security. Today, within Indian Businesses, SaaS solutions are being adopted by 77 percent of the nation’s CIOs to assist them in enhancing enterprise security.
Cyber security is now a national priority, and CERT-IN, an agency that deals with cyber security in India, has come up with mandates enforcing security policies. Most firms in India are in the early stages of establishing a security roadmap, and roughly 50 percent of the large and middle-sized businesses have a digital transformation plan in place. Although the change is gradual, this can be seen as the beginning.
The last two years of the pandemic have completely changed the dynamics of enterprise security. What are the top enterprise security trends you see in the new normal? How has the pandemic affected the way enterprise security works?
A greater portion of the younger generation root for the ‘anywhere workplace’ model. Organizations have developed workforce management and remote onboarding solutions in response to their demands, enabling employees to work from any location. In addition, with the migration of software and infrastructure to the cloud, continuity of work is ensured.
The culture also pushed corporate devices to remote locations making endpoint management solutions like UEMs witness an upscale in demand. UEMis a vastly improved version of their forerunners, MDM and EMM, and can push configurations, restrict functionality, initiate installations, and perform numerous other remote activities across a wide range of platforms.IAM systems have also been widely adopted as a method of assuring data security and privacy.
Privacy has been a hot topic for a long time, and after Europe’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and California’s CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), we will sooner see a more significant portion of countries stepping towards enacting privacy regulation acts.
Finally, an acronym we all are familiar with- AI. While customer service and preventing zero-day vulnerabilities are two areas where AI has found use, its full potential is yet to be tapped.
Firewalls, VPNs, and passwords were all conventional ways of ensuring security. However, the pandemic forced businesses to adopt a remote work culture which, in turn, compelled businesses to think outside the box. Perimeter-based techniques weren’t sufficient enough to protect data and CISOs had to re-construct their security architecture. As a result of intense brainstorming, we today have enterprise security solutions like UEM, ZTNA, SASE, etc.
As the organizations braced themselves for remote and hybrid work, cyber security and endpoint security have become more critical than ever. In this scenario, how do you see the demand for Unified Endpoint Management growing in India?
It hasn’t been long since the country has begun investing in digitalization. However, campaigns like ‘Digital India’ and the pandemic played a huge role in quickening the pace. About 62 percent of Indian businesses are in the formative stage of digitalization. Due to its large talent pool, low operating costs, and assistance from the government, India is currently one of the top outsourcing locations for some of the larger global corporations like Microsoft, Cisco, and Google, among others.
Digital India intends to make government services available to citizens electronically. This initiative requires a lot of investment in terms of privacy and security. Sooner, government institutions will have to rely on UEMs and other cyber security solutions to securely store and manage data. Additionally, many of the tasks within the government sector are outsourced to private companies and corporates dealing with citizen data must tighten security to avoid data leaks. Unified Endpoint Management solutions cover aspects of data protection and privacy and also ensure that the right person has access to the right resources. Executives have started to consider device management solutions while building their security roadmap. The UEM industry is still at a growing stage within the country but will find a promising future soon.
Please talk about your global and India footprint, and recent business achievements in terms of business expansion, revenue growth, and customer acquisition over the last 12-18 months.
For the past nine years, we have been focussing more on the global market. The majority of our customers are based in North America and Europe. Our initial projects were based out of the United States, and it is one of our strong bases as well. In the coming years, we intend to focus more on India and other countries.
Post pandemic, we have been experiencing higher demands for the solution. In India, after our first branch in Kochi, we opened our second hub in Chennai and are planning on opening a few more as a part of building our team. We have been partnering with various software and OEM vendors and have also been expanding our channel partner community.
Please give us the highlights of your channel strategies and channel footprint in India. What are your recent channel initiatives?
Most of our channel partners are based in the United States and the United Kingdom. We have set out plans to extend our presence into the APAC region and have started with setting up our foundations in India. We do have a few partners in India as well.
We recently launched a new Partner Relationship Management (PRM) portal for our partners, which will help them with the necessary resources to run their business in a comprehensive manner.
Please talk about your business and channel expansion plans.
There has been a lot of talk about the cloud, and many applications have shifted from on-premise to SaaS. Similar to how management platforms for mobile devices are necessary, enterprises’ increasing reliance on SaaS apps will also necessitate a management platform for them. We are in the process of developing a SaaS management platform named ‘Hexnode Do’ to help manage and secure these applications.
Extending our support for IoT and XR devices is also in the pipeline. I believe that with the growing adoption of IoT and metaverse, solutions to manage them will witness increased demand.
Amidst the four partnership programs, we have been focussing on building our ISV and OEM partnerships. OpenVPN, Agnosys, Secureframe, and Kaspersky are our latest additions. We also released a validation program for eligible OEM vendors where devices compatible with Hexnode will be listed on our website. Device management solutions experience a huge audience, and partnership with such solutions could benefit partners in building their customer base as well.
What is your outlook for the enterprise security market in India over the next couple of years?
Currently, most organizations are expected to follow India’s Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act). The bill, however, falls short of what the evolving times call for – a specific set of guidelines for data protection. The nation is now establishing a new set of regulations, so sooner or later, enterprises will need to ensure that they have the required infrastructure to guarantee privacy to their customers.
Outside of the country, data privacy rules are a critical issue, and businesses working with foreign clients are obliged to adhere to such laws. In India, the expenditure on risk management solutions increased by 9.5 percent in 2021. Considering the gravity, I believe that enterprise security solutions will see a bright future in India.
