RSA sees India as our primary home around the globe: Jim Taylor, Chief Product Officer, SecurID, RSA

RSA, a global leader in identity and access management solutions, recently announced strategic plans for its growth in the Indian market. Following a 580 per cent YoY increase in its Indian SaaS business, RSA has finalised several major investments in the country to fuel its growth. RSA has hired more than 200 people across development, engineering, and go-to-market functions and has also established the RSA India Center of Excellence. Jim Taylor, Chief Product Officer for SecurID, RSA, shares with Express Computer how doing business in India has been a big investment for his organisation.

Some edited excerpts: 

• Can you tell us about RSA and its global and Indian journey?

For more than three decades, we have been a trusted security company that provides trusted identity and access management for 12,000 organisations around the world, managing 25 million enterprise identities and providing secure, convenient access to millions of users.

RSA empowers organisations to thrive in a digital world with complete capabilities for modern authentication, lifecycle management, and identity governance.

The last couple of years have seen tremendous growth and maturity in the Indian market, not just for our customers, but also as a strategic home for RSA. We have been hiring and growing our footprint. The business with India has been a big investment, India is really starting to take its position as one of the leaders in technology and is embracing the cloud. There is a lot of innovation. We will be announcing a new SaaS service that was built and hosted in India. We have seen explosive growth in our businesses in this country.

• How has the demand for cloud-based security solutions increased over the years in India?

The demand is growing exponentially, and it is accelerating because of cloud adoption.

India continues to be among the fastest-growing markets for public cloud services due to massive demand from large businesses, rising start-ups, MSME’s, and digital initiatives in the country, and the need for security is growing unanimously.

 

• How important is India as a market for RSA in the global scheme of things?

Several recent trends have increased India’s technology demands: the coronavirus pandemic accelerated the rise of remote and hybrid work throughout India, exacerbating security vulnerabilities while also driving greater urgency to provide users with the resources they need to live and work. 

Two recent government programs, Digital India and Make in India, set targets for digitising India’s government, attracting and retaining tech talent, and further developing India’s tech sector. These government goals, along with business needs and customer expectations, are driving the demand for scalable identity solutions across a variety of sectors.

India demonstrates heightened levels of maturity and sophistication, particularly in security-first verticals like finance, government, and technology. Leaders across these sectors understand that security starts with identity and increasingly turn to RSA to help them address new challenges in enabling remote work, modernising their IT stacks, and addressing cybersecurity risks.

 

• What are your plans for growth in India, and how is RSA working towards the same?

It is great to be close to where the action is.

RSA wants to grow with India. As India matures and the market grows, I think it is important to be a part of that and invest in keeping future growth in consideration. 

For us, India is a strategic home and is important to us, so much so that it is one of our most important development sites. We have built a lot of innovation in India, and part of the reason we do that is not only the talent and maturity available here but also because India is adopting more technology. 

With more and more technology coming into the Indian market, we anticipate continued strong growth, not just in what we see but what we build. I want to build and innovate in India. I plan on making big investments in the country, starting off with more headcount.

As a commitment to our plans for the Indian market, RSA has significantly increased investments to support this accelerated growth. In line with these growth plans, RSA recently launched a new cloud tenant in the country to meet the growing demand for ID Plus, the RSA cloud, and a hybrid identity platform. The launch comes amidst the company’s mission to strategically align with the government’s Digital India initiative.

• You mentioned about 580 percent growth in SaaS businesses from the Indian market, what do you think are some of the factors that contributed to this growth?

The Indian market has always been an important market for us financially. The market is growing exponentially.

It has been a significant market for us as a company in terms of innovation and perspective, and it has been our primary home around the globe. Undoubtedly, India is a whole new world in terms of technology, posing a new set of problems every day, and I am proud to say that we have got solutions to address these problems efficiently.

 

• Any other significant factor you wish to highlight?

The pandemic led to an increase in cybersecurity incidents. Threats are up, new technology, and cloud consumption is seeing massive growth; and the introduction and adoption of 5G. As India adopts more and more advanced cloud technology, there is a security burden.

The introduction of new bills, Acts, and guidance around security by the Indian Government has also helped in accelerating the adoption process, leading to massive strategic growth. It is great to see this maturity occur in the Indian market.