Evgeniya Naumova, VP, Global Sales Network, Kaspersky, on the challenging market conditions and how the cybersecurity vendor is helping its enterprise customers to navigate the security challenges in tough times.
The year 2020 was a game changer. All business had to adapt to a new reality and address new challenges. The only question was: how to do this successfully?
I approach all obstacles and difficulties as opportunities – and instill this mindset in my team. As a result, in 2020 our business showed the best sales results in the company’s history. Although a challenging time, with the right sales approach and decision making, we were able to achieve strong enterprise sales growth and efficiency.
Let me share with you five main elements that made our enterprise sales strategy succeed.
Trust
The new digitalised business environment relies on trust: trust in brands, trust in partnerships, and trust in technology. If you do not understand how something works or how it handles your data, it is not deserving of your trust.
In cybersecurity, the industry for which trust is key, emphasis should be placed on greater transparency as well as the long-term relationships built with your customers.
In such challenging times, many organisations find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Businesses have had to adapt to new digital realities by setting everything up remotely (and at the shortest possible time), and at the same time cybercriminals have built momentum and the ability to broaden the pool of those to attack and the tools in their arsenal. Which means, customers need cybersecurity support now more than ever.
At Kaspersky, for example, we prepared a free online course on how to adapt to working safely from home and offered an ‘anti-COVID’ package that included a number of different products and services to support all companies worldwide for several months. Our primary focus was on healthcare organisations and we developed a special, free package for this sector, which was on the forefront of battling both the epidemic and among the most vulnerable to IT security risks during this difficult time.
Stability
In times of turbulence, businesses appreciate stability most of all – not only from vendors, but the vendors partners as well. When a client sees that a partner’s business is stable and developing, they feel safe and confident in the services being proposed. This involves continuously investing in improving the quality of your services, along with stable customer support.
Clients must be provided with the best service and support at all times. To achieve this, aspects like actively investing in enterprise product development and enhancement of dedicated expertise becomes key.
Flexibility
In times of change for your client, you have to change too and adapt quickly to their new business needs. As lockdowns were imposed, businesses became unable to meet with customers and partners to participate in face-to-face negotiations. In the enterprise segment, such a loss of ‘personal touch’ can have significant impact. Nowadays, it is valued greatly to be present, operative and available for a client. At the same time, it enables you – the vendor – with greater opportunities: online events can engage greater numbers of attendees than ever before, across multiple geographies, while experiments with virtual formats allow you to bring different experiences to the table.
While remote communication with your customers is easily accomplished, it still holds limitations on how you can present all the possibilities of your products.
Simplicity
Although the industry and technology are constantly and increasingly developing, businesses choose to work with vendors with easy-to-handle business processes and products.
According to the Simplicity Index, 64% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand because it provides simpler experiences and communications. A ‘simplified experience’ became especially crucial during the pandemic. While companies already face a vast number of problems in their day-to-day activities, their interactions with their vendor should not be one of them – from communication to support and financial as well as administrative (bureaucratic) questions. Vendors should value their partners’ time and use their experience, which in the end leads to win-win situations.
Over and above this, vendors must also be a channel-driven company, with a goal to be the preferred vendor in the industry for partners to work with.
Expertise
Research shows that for businesses, the most important considerations when choosing a cybersecurity provider are product and service quality, as well as expertise in cyberthreats. Such a trend is confirmed by the development of the threat landscape that, on the one hand, is amplified by the rise of APT attacks, and on the other by the fact that significant damage to large companies is inflicted by malware not specifically designed to infect corporate networks.
Today, customers seek sophisticated protection from a vendor with an elite level of expertise that has been proved globally.
Looking ahead, what can we expect from the enterprise cybersecurity sector?
Digitalisation, being an inevitable process for every business that wishes to succeed, will see further development in different formats. For instance, a ‘remote mode of everything’ is not just a trend, but a new normal and recent Kaspersky research has revealed that almost three quarters (74%) of employees want to keep a hybrid approach to working in the future. For those in cybersecurity, this means that risks to businesses will remain, if not grow. Therefore, the importance of these five elements at the core of enterprise security will only increase.