We Are Thriving In Hyper-Growth Markets Including India: Veeam MD

Tell us about Veeam’s positioning in the cybersecurity space. Could you shed some light on your business performance and India focus?

We are clearly the leader. Even Gartner’s Magic Quadrant report positioned us first for ‘enterprise backup and recovery software solutions’ for seven consecutive years (2016, 2017,2019,2021, 2021, 2022, 2023; there was no MQ in 2018). The report even placed us highest for our execution ability. Our excellence was also recognised during the H2 2022 in IDC’s DR&P market, a Hetrick title that we bagged for being number one globally. Since our inception in 2006, we have a team of 5,000 plus employees with over 35,000 and more partners. Our customers are more than 4,50,000 across 180 plus countries, contributing to over USD 1.3 billion of revenue. We have also achieved a 12 per cent global growth in YoY Q1 2023 which was 15 per cent in the preceding FY. On the whole, we are doing great business. Asia Pacific, Japan, India and SAARC, are our hyper-growth regions, and we are flourishing.  

Could you tell us a bit about Veeam’s presence in India? 

We started India operation in 2014 and have witnessed massive growth since then consisting of over 700 plus partners including HPE, Cisco, Lenovo and cloud service providers GSIs and IVs. With a 100 per cent agnostic approach – no hardware and pure software, the company’s focus verticals in India include, enterprises, BFSI, manufacturing, ITes, and PSU. Veeam protects data of India’s biggest brands, Mahindra Group, Granules India, Parul University, Hero MotoCorp and Future Generali.

Is the company planning to hire more this year and next?

The outlook of hiring depends on the next year but overall, our ecosystem is strong and we are likely to advance. Our GTM (go-to-market) is very much dependent on our partners so our hiring can also be in terms of partners. But yes, we have started the hiring for software developers which is again a big commitment to our solution providing and the coming years will be likely to harness more talent.

A recent report claimed that India was ranked as the third-worst country in terms of cybersecurity risks in the first half of 2023. Why is India affected so badly?

Cybersecurity risk and ransomware risk are more or less the same for organisations anywhere in the world. But in certain geopolitical situations, India’s cyber system is more vulnerable, and the threat is largely due to cyberattackers who have a higher interest in Indian companies. To overcome the problem the best practice that we have designed is ‘32110’, which means three copies of data out of which two copies need to be stored in different media. One copy has to be offsite and one onsite and the other remaining copy has to be immutable or at airgap which ensures the ransomware cannot encrypt or delete the data and the immutable copy can either be on the cloud or on the frame. However, Indian organisations need to implement the strategy beforehand because after the attack it is common for organisations to face issues in data recovery. So, to avoid the discrepancy it is recommended that companies should adopt software that guarantees 100 per cent recovery.

What should organisations concentrate on to avoid ransomware attacks?

Ransomware attacks cannot be avoided as they are unpredictable and can happen at one point or another but the solution lies in the organisation’s ability to restart after the loss. The mantra is ‘to get up quickly after a downfall’. So, the company needs to be resilient and get back up swiftly.

How does Veeam help India build cloud and security skills?

We are completely a channel-oriented company and have more than hundreds of partners in our journey of cloud building and security in India. Our ecosystem includes major players HPE, Cisco, Lenovo, Exagrid, and Scality among others. In the hyperscaler world, our collaboration is with AWS, Microsoft, Google and a host of other Indian cloud service, who providers are together implementing consumer solutions that is further boosted with Veeam’s certification programme.

In the era of global AI expansion, cybersecurity faces fresh challenges. How can advanced technology be harnessed to mitigate the risks, many of which are exacerbated by AI itself?

I don't think it would be possible to completely eradicate ransomware because with AI attackers would be ahead of defenders. So, data protection is very important amid AI and the advanced technology is more about deriving intelligence from the data. So, it just highlights the importance of data and our job is to protect the data.

Could you tell us about Veeam’s partnership with Microsoft?

We have a long-standing partnership with Microsoft wherein we provide a range of solutions to multinational companies offering protection to consumers working on Azure and Microsoft 365. We utilise our collaboration with Microsoft to make it more secure, emphasising our specialty in cloud mobility and data freedom. We are securing those endless consumers who trust their data on Microsoft Cloud. Additionally, we are the largest vendor protecting Microsoft 365. So, on the whole, our partnership with the company is very comprehensive wherein we responsibly protect its different databases. 

What is Veeam's take on the 'Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023'?

We consider DPDP a very big implementation for businesses. It is a significant measure by the Centre that mandates informing the authorised board of any data loss. Veeam’s business solutions can be linked to this revolutionary bill as we responsibly protect organisations data and helps the company secure their information by providing backup options