Security vendor ESET will aim to double its market share in Australia within a year on the back of its newly opened Sydney office and an expanded roster of channel partners to be incentivised with extra margins and expanded local support.
It’s a major commitment for the Slovakian vendor, which has had a presence in Australia since 2001 but has so far worked exclusively through channel partners to service the local market.
Represented in over 180 countries and used by a claimed 100m customers, the company’s Sydney office is its fourth – joining facilities in Bratislava; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Prague, Czech Republic. Malware research centres are located in Bratislava; San Diego; Buenos Aires; Singapore; Prague; Košice, Slovakia; Krakow, Poland; Montreal, Canada; and Moscow.
The choice to expand into Australia was driven by the sense that the security-hungry local market still had tremendous growth potential, Asia Pacific marketing director Parvinder Walia told CSO Australia.
“Australia is a growing economy and when we did the research we figured out that we have not reached the milestones we really wanted to in Australia,” Walia said. “The level of awareness of security in this country is very high, and we see it’s a huge potential market. We see it as a big opportunity to make it available in all the possible channels.”
Partner events, an annual conference and a proposed dedicated training and certification centre will strengthen the company’s position in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, with a four-pillar channel strategy built on the company’s products, channel commitment, stability, and local support backed by the country’s 24x7x365 global support.
“This will help us get market share from the free antiviruses and from competitors,” Australia country manager Florin Vasile said. “We have designed a very appealing partner program, based on very appealing margins and a few unique features” such as an early bird commitment margin, platinum vouchers, and extra margins for all partners that join ESET this year.
The vouchers, for example, can be applied retroactively against whichever ESET product line turns out to be most profitable – ensuring maximum value for channel partners.
Ultimately, however, Walia believes the company’s growth will come on the back of its highly regarded technology, which combines signature and heuristic-based scanning with the growing knowledge base of the cloud-based ESET LiveGrid service.
Walia is confident the solution will be particularly appealing to small and medium businesses but is also expecting that recent management improvements will increase its appeal in the enterprise space.
“At ESET we rely very heavily on our technology,” he said. “SMBs just want to invest in their core businesses and have software that does its job. The technology is the key factor when people consider ESET.”
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