At Veritas Technologies’ Vision Executive Forum in Bali last week, EITN got real with the company’s senior executives as they shared their proudest milestones over the last one year.
“Our offering and presence all over ASEAN is far more than what it used to be,” said Ravi Rajendran, Veritas Technologies VP & MD, Asia South Region. “Whilst everyone knows us as number 1 with very high market share in data protection regionally, our focus around our platform of Availability, Protection and Insights (API) is what makes us compelling. Basically in our offerings, we have solutions behind each one of these areas today. Our story has certainly evolved into one of an integrated data management play for our customers. They are looking for partners like that. They are not looking for one vendor for data protection, one for insights or analytics.”
Chris Lin, Senior VP, Sales, Veritas Asia Pacific & Japan continued, “Our API platform has truly become a reality. It is not just something we talk about in the future, but already have used cases. The last one year saw customer demand increase with our solutions receiving positive feedback. I think we have something that is solving real problems. The challenge is how we are going to be more effective in sharing these information. Whilst we are still a technology powerhouse, we are not the best in telling the world this.”
Weighing in, Deepak Mohan, Veritas’ Executive VP of Enterprise Data Protection and Compliance Business Unit, a veteran at Symantec before Veritas was spun off, said, “When I came back to Veritas, just a year ago, it is now tangible that Veritas is significantly focused on the data services platform around API. Under Symantec, it was under the umbrella of a security company. The corporate messaging was around security, whereas everything else that Veritas offered now, was an afterthought there.”
“Interestingly, Veritas is in a growth market for each of these areas, hence making Veritas completely relevant. Cloud is a transformative disruption. The services people expect on-premise by enterprise IT, they need them in the Cloud too. Veritas software platform allows you to have all that,” continued Mohan.
One-trick pony wouldn’t cut it
Putting all things in perspective, in his presentation, John Abel, Senior VP & CIO of Veritas Technologies shared that advanced analytics is the differentiating factor for companies to not just grow, but to survive. He pulled up the example that while the telephone needed 78 years to reach 50 million users, Facebook required two years and it only took Pokemon Go 19 days to hit that.
Whilst digital transformation could be interpreted differently to mean different things within an organisation, what underpins it is data and the advanced analytics of it. Every company is becoming a data company. Tellingly, Abel laid the example of asking his good friend, John Donahoe, the new CEO of Nike, what the connection was between a software company and a retail company, on the back of Donahoe leaving as CEO of cloud software giant, ServiceNow to Nike. Donahoe’s response was, “We don’t see ourselves as a retail company, we are a data company.”
All were in agreement that “a one-trick pony” would not cut it in today’s business survival, when even traditionally non-tech companies single out data as the biggest driving factor. It is therefore a pivotal moment that Veritas has evolved to beyond its data protection story to include insights in its comprehensive API platform.
To this, Abel opined that the single biggest factor for digital transformation problem was the failure to effectively communicate a company’s strategy, goals, purpose and outlook with their own employees. Just as well that he listed that the alignment in goals and priorities he now sees in Veritas, post Symantec, between its API platform strategy and operations as his proudest milestone.
