Egnyte urges SMEs to boost their content security

A phrase that should strike dread into the heart of every business executive is content sprawl. This is the severe and growing risk companies face from the unmanaged growth of their data.

Research by cloud content security and governance company Egnyte found that 41% of IT leaders say content sprawl is increasing the risk of data breaches and leaks. Egnyte’s 2021 Data Governance Trends Report found that 40% of businesses are exposed to unsanctioned cloud storage and many rely on unsafe ‘informal’ repositories, such as email, Slack and DocuSign.

Given the potential scale of security risks from data breaches, businesses can’t afford to relax for a moment. Even more so for SMEs, who are probably less likely to have the appropriate tools in place to tackle content sprawl or the necessary resources to implement the tools effectively.

To find out why over 16,000 businesses worldwide choose Reading-based Egnyte to combat their data security threats, The Business Magazine caught up with Rajesh Ram (pictured, left), Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Egnyte, and Stan Hansen (pictured, right), Chief Revenue Officer, on one of their regular visits from their headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley to the Thames Valley.

Battling to protect content

“The business world today is at an interesting confluence of how people work, how much content they create and how much of it is important to them,” observed Ram.

A digitised world supports hybrid working, a pattern hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic but one that spreads the sprawl. In addition, the data protection landscape is changing dramatically, driven by a combination of the realisation that data is a core business asset that needs online protection, GDPR rules on data privacy and defending against ‘bad actors’ attempting to fraudulently access confidential business information.

“We help companies to battle the data threats they face by protecting and managing their content,” said Hansen, typifying Egnyte’s straightforward and enthusiastic support for its growing UK customer base.

Egnyte’s cloud-based content platform brings data management and security onto a unified foundation that not only protects information but also improves employee productivity.

As well as targeting a predominantly SME market across multiple sectors, Egnyte is the go-to provider for larger organisations. In the UK, these include media and advertising giant M&C Saatchi and specialist insurer Pension Insurance Corporation, which numbers the government among its clients.

Rapid ROI in enhanced data protection

Ram estimates that Egnyte customers can measure return on their investment in days and weeks, rather than weeks or years, even when they need to move large amounts of data over to its products. He said:

Earning customers’ trust

Egnyte is keen to position itself as more than just another tech company from across the Atlantic. “Some US tech companies assume that all they need to succeed in the UK is to open an office over here. We think that’s a very arrogant posture,” said Ram. “Basing relationships just on the monetary gains you can make is short-sighted.”

The key to good customer relationships, he believes, begins by showing you genuinely care about your customers’ successes.

“We take the time to understand the local market as well as the nuances between customers and their requirements. We learn to speak their business language so we can serve them in ways that make sense to them. It’s a learning process for us and we are constantly improving what we do for customers,” said Ram.

Egnyte takes a ‘nail it and scale it” approach typical of fast-growth entrepreneurial businesses, as Hansen explained: “First, we get the product and market fit right, making sure we are aligned with what customers need, then we invest in the market and grow our business. We don’t overcommit on what we can deliver and offer protection at an attractive price.”

Often, customers come to Egnyte to solve a specific problem, such as moving large data files or ransomware issues. Then, once trust and confidence are established, the relationship expands.

“Most companies are looking for a partner not just to sell them a product that protects their information but one with whom they can forge a long-term relationship. After all, with data security they are handing over their ‘crown jewels’ to us to look after,” said Ram.

Currently, around three-quarters of Egnyte’s business is direct-to-customer and the rest goes through a small group of carefully selected channel partners. “We choose partners with the same vision and values that we aspire to, particularly in terms of customer engagement. They also have the scale to broaden our target market and are keen to engage with us,” said Hansen.

Importance of a local focus

Egnyte sees a strong fit between the needs of its original Californian customers to those of its expanding UK customer base, which has almost doubled in size over the last six months.

Hansen expects Egnyte will increase its UK team by about 25% in 2022 to around 45 specialists in customer, technical and advisory services by the end of the year.

After starting in Bracknell, the company moved to its office in central Reading in 2020, just as the Covid-19 lockdown began. Now, it is welcoming staff back to office working and looking forward to more face-to-face time with customers.

Hansen said:

Business forums encourage collaboration

More broadly, Egnyte is actively involved in the local Thames Valley business community, notably by organising forums for both customers and non-customers. “We find business people are willing to share their experiences, especially SMEs,” said Ram. “We are in the business of helping companies to be successful – whether they are customers of ours or not.”

Hansen emphasised: “Data security is a global problem all businesses face. It’s a battle that has to be fought collectively.”

Giving something back

As well as in the business community, Egnyte is also making its presence felt in Reading by supporting community-focused activities. For example, it is about to start a collaboration with Curious Lounge, a co-working space located in the same building as Egnyte, by providing digital skills training to young people starting their careers.

“We’re supporting the next generation of technology entrepreneurs,” noted Hansen.

An entrepreneur helping entrepreneurs

Since establishing Egnyte in 2007, Ram has helped build it into a global enterprise with annual recurring revenue of over $150 million and more than 900 staff globally.

“When you start something, you have no idea where it will take you. I am proud and humbled by being able to protect our customers by running their mission-critical services,” he said.

Egnyte’s data governance report found that 88% of companies surveyed expect their employees will work remotely for at least some of 2022. For many businesses, the temporary fix that hybrid working offered during the pandemic is likely to become a permanent change. And with the increasing scale and frequency of data attacks on companies, the need to contain content sprawl and, in Ram’s words protect the corporate ‘crown jewels’, has never been greater.

Three content security issues businesses should address

• Do you know where all your content is stored?

• Do you understand what content you have – what is sensitive or important and what is not?

• Do the right people have access to the right content and do you ensure the wrong people can’t access business-critical information?

For more information and to contact email Egnyte at [email protected].