< PreviousDAY IN THE LIFE // INSIDE THE CHANNEL WORKPLACE (40) CHANNEL MIDDLE EAST_JULY-SEPTEMBER 2020 www.channelmiddleeast.com My days are planned much in advance except for issues that need urgent attention. This allows me to focus and prioritise tasks in line with their importance and priority. I usually do this by organising the tasks on my calendar. Generally, I am in my of- fice in JLT by 10:30am. Since I finish all my emails before reaching my desk, I pay attention to office matters that require face-to- face interaction. In my role as leader, one key responsibility is to plan for future and create strategies to meet the goals. This comes from experience and reading the current trends in the business. I enjoy the process of building and planning the future of my companies. The time for commute to my office varies as I have multiple businesses across time zones. Now, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought work-from- home culture across the organisation. My office and home are just 5 mins away and that gives me flexibility. I usually wake up around 6:30am and go for a morning walk. After, I have an office set up at home and usually finish all my emails between 8:00 and 9:30am before getting ready to go to the office. SUNDAY, 08 JUNE 2020 TIMELINE Would you like your channel job to be featured in our ‘Day in the Life’ section? If so, e-mail: sarah.rizvi@itp.com 06:3009:3010:30 11:3011:00 Being healthy, not just physically but also mentally is very important when you are in a key role that involves continuous stress. I go for regular 5 km walks and play sports to keep good health and state of mind. I try to keep a track on continuous basis and adapt my work accordingly. Before I reach office and during the lunch break are the best op- tions I have during the day to review my schedule and make changes if required. Success lies in the results. The difference between a suc- cessful person and not so suc- cessful is simple – successful people just make things happen and do not come back with a reason for failure. Failure is never an option. 17:0014:0015:0018:00 I am strict about my eating habits, which help me maintain the right energy levels throughout the day. I have lunch between 1:00 and 2:00pm daily. If I am at home, I have lunch with family and catch up with them. It is not really an easy task when you are handling global operations that involve different time zones and culture ethos. However, I am supported by a very understanding family that gives me the flexibility to bal- ance work and family life. 13:0012:00 I like to spend time with my daughter and family. I call my parents daily and check on them. During the week on al- ternate days, I play table ten- nis and snooker/pool which are great stress busters. After dinner, I usually take my dogs out for a small walk. It is usually after midnight that I am able to go to sleep as I have to interact with my US team operations between 10.30pm and 12:00 midnight. 24:00 We join Anand Choudha, CEO & President of Spectrami as he shares how he spends his day at work. DAY IN THE LIFE Channel Middle East finds out from a market personality about their role, their routine and what inspires them to come into work each day NAME: ANAND CHOUDHA COMPANY: SPECTRAMI JOB TITLE: CEO & PRESIDENT YEARS IN THE ROLE: 9 YEARS YEARS AT THE COMPANY: 9 YEARS PREVIOUS COMPANIES: BARRACUDA NETWORKS, FVCIn my view, the future of IT security is all about cloud-powered securi- ty—security delivered from the cloud. It’s really a convergence of three things coming together: cloud security, data protection and behav- ioural analytics, all being delivered in a unified way from the cloud. The enterprise perimeter continues to evolve. In the early 2000’s, security efforts still focused on building walls. In the last 10 years or so, virtualisation gave rise to the public cloud industry and sparked big data. Beyond introducing cloud capabilities to companies, this shift highlighted the importance of protecting critical electronic assets. Today, users and data are everywhere. It’s created a challenging reality for CISOs: you need to secure users and data anywhere, at any time on any device. While enterprise perimeter centres around the network and cloud, people as the next perimeter is becoming the new reality. It’s about protecting users and data in a distributed and diverse environ- ment, one that bridges traditional on- premises infrastructures, including the home office, to multi-cloud and multi- SaaS ones. Our current situation forced a rapid shift toward supporting large groups of remote workers. It’s a change that’s ushered in a new way of working. And that’s placed even more importance on protecting users and data in hybrid IT environments. Moving forward requires a change in how we deliver network and cloud security as an industry. Gartner’s Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is an architecture that aims to do just that. It’s an approach that promises direct-to- app connectivity and security for cloud-first and hybrid enterprises. At Forcepoint, it means delivering Dynamic Edge Protection on top of a converged security platform. The Journey Towards SASE Companies large and small are at dif- ferent points in their security journey. Many have moved on from a traditional on-premises environment, where all data resides in company data centres, to a hybrid environment that connects on- prem infrastructure to cloud infrastruc- ture. While companies will continue to make this transition at their own pace, velocity has clearly increased. Getting to a cloud-powered future hinges on three main things: • Convergence = What used to be a product is now often a feature; to us, convergence means merging web security, network security and securing cloud or SaaS applications. All contained and protected by a holistic data security approach. • Deliver Security-as-a-Service = Securing the cloud from the cloud. Getting to this requires a shift from thinking about things only from an on-prem perspective or a cloud-only one. The end goal is unifying all security management, policies and reporting in the cloud, wherever the enforcement device sits or the end- point is located. • Provide cloud-native, hybrid enforced security and data protec- tion = Connecting cloud and on- premises resources and protecting them holistically. This last piece is critical because the transition is dif- ferent for every industry, vertical or company. At Forcepoint, we understand the transformation our customers currently face. Getting to a cloud-based security reality is a journey. And it’s one we’re committed to helping them make. FUTURE OF CLOUD SECURITY Nicolas Fischbach, global CTO, Forcepoint discusses the convergence of cloud security, data protection and behavioural analytics for a cloud-powered future (41) www.channelmiddleeast.com CHANNEL MIDDLE EAST_JULY-SEPTEMBER 2020> What is your career history to date? How did you end up working in Dubai? I am based out of Germany I have almost 20 years of industry experience. I have been lucky to be in the position to successfully building and growing great channel teams and channel business in EMEA. Prior to SentinelOne, I led the EMEA Channel team for Rubrik. Before Rubrik I was the first Channel Manager on the ground in EMEA for Palo Alto Networks. > What sort of interests do you have outside of work? When not travelling (what I do usually when we don´t have COVID19) I enjoy spending the weekends with my family. I have twin boys in the age of 4 and a girl that keep me remarkably busy. When time permits, I´m an addicted Tennis player and mountain biker. > What is your favourite thing about the company you work for? We have a 100% channel DNA – from the board to the field – beside that our company is taking care of our people every day and sees us as individual, human beings and not just as a number in the books. > If you could improve one thing about the channel business what would it be? Making it as easy as possible to work with vendors due to tight integration into vendor programs, vendor processes and vendor tools. 20 > What is your proudest career achievement to date? At Rubrik I started from scratch and build a massive channel engine, great channel team and a great channel community that was key for the hyper growth of Rubrik in EMEA. > What is the best piece of advice you have been given? Do not follow the slogan: “I do it myself because it is easier” if you follow this slogan you will never scale in the right way. if you want to build a self-sufficient, strong channel community – you need to let them run and take ownership. > Which IT company, other than your own, do you most admire and why? Hard question – there are many great companies out there. But what I was always impressed by was Apple. Instead of staying passive and defend their existing markets, they created and “owned” new markets. > What is the biggest mistake you have ever made since working in the IT market? Good question – I think in the early days of my career I took stuff too personal and forgot to listen to advices from people that wanted to help me when challenging me – instead of taking the advice, listen and think – I just blocked in my early days and thought “I know it better” – but I was wrong. I learned out of it and can only give the advice to everyone – you never should stop learning, listen carefully, ask for feedback, ask for advice and help – and be open this will help you to improve and step up and get better and better every day. > What is the biggest challenge facing the Middle East IT channel? COVID19 and the related oil shock is creating the biggest challenge. Uncertainty in the markets and with customers will make it hard to grow business. Partners must adjust to the new normal and think out of the box – as every challenge comes with opportunities. Smart, fast and agile partners will be best positioned to get quite easy through this time and will be in the pole position as soon as we are close to the old normal. years of industry experience Stritt has ROLAND STRITT EMEA CHANNEL DIRECTOR AT SENTINELONE > What product or technology should the channel watch out for this year? We are raising the bar for the industry with our Singularity XDR, it is a comprehensive platform view of the enterprise to help organisations defend against every attack at every stage in the threat lifecycle. Singularity delivers context and actionable insight in the way it combines data from multiple sources, whether that is an endpoint protection agent, EDR data, IoT and network asset data, or cloud workloads. GET TO KNOW // CHANNEL CHAMPIONS UNCOVERED (42) CHANNEL MIDDLE EAST_JULY-SEPTEMBER 2020 www.channelmiddleeast.comTHE ESSENTIAL GUIDE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA IT SOLUTION PROVIDER CHANNEL CHANNELMIDDLEEAST.COMNext >