Exclusive: Orient Technologies shifts from MSPP to exclusive VAD with US$5 million Securonix bet after nine-month evaluation

The partnership gives Orient a route into the US market while expanding Securonix's reach across over 800 enterprise customers, backed by investments in SOC operations, cybersecurity talent and managed services.

Orient Technologies is committing US$5 million to a broader distribution and services partnership with Securonix after spending nine months evaluating the security vendor’s platform through an initial managed security services arrangement.

The move shifts Orient from its earlier role as a “Securonix MSPP” to the vendor’s “exclusive value-added distributor” and joint go-to-market partner in India.

The agreement also creates a route for Orient to pursue business in the US.

“The partnership extends beyond [conventional distribution] into implementation, integration, professional services, technical support and continuing SOC operations,” Securonix country director, India and SAARC, Dipesh Kaura, and Orient Technologies Limited chairman and managing director, Ajay Sawant, told CRN India.

Orient plans to invest US$5 million over the next two years and add around 100 cybersecurity professionals. The companies also aim to expand their customer footprint by 12 per cent.

Sawant said Orient began working with Securonix approximately nine months ago through a basic MSSP model and an initial 200 GB tenant. The company used that period to understand the platform and assess its suitability before taking on the expanded mandate.

“We wanted to make our hands dirty first. We wanted to understand the capabilities of the product,” Sawant said.

“We have done our due diligence for nine months, and after nine months we are coming out with a big bang, saying that here is a product which I have confidence that I can take to the world.”

The agreement covers Securonix’s wider security portfolio, including SIEM, security orchestration, automation and response, user and entity behaviour analytics, and ThreatQuotient, the threat intelligence platform acquired by Securonix.

According to Sawant, the scope will also extend to newly acquired products and portfolios, making the arrangement broader than a distribution agreement centred only on Unified Defence SIEM.

Removes access and credibility barriers

For Securonix, the immediate advantage is access to Orient’s base of over 800 enterprise customers in India.

Kaura said those organisations are already using services from Orient, removing some of the access and credibility barriers an OEM can face when entering accounts independently.

“Orient’s customers, which is about 800 customers now, become our direct-reach customers because Orient is already a service provider to them,” Kaura said.

“It is not a new meeting or a cold call, so to say in business language. The reach, credibility and connect are already there.”

Kaura described the arrangement as one of the first of its kind executed by Securonix in India and a departure from the company’s established business model in the country.

“We have broken the normal business patterns that we have been following in India,” he said.

Orient currently employs over 1,600 people, according to Sawant, with around 1,200 technical employees certified by different technology vendors.

Securonix will train and certify the Orient personnel assigned to its business.

Sawant said the enablement arrangement will continue for at least three years and include a train-the-trainer model, allowing trained Orient employees to develop additional skills within the organisation.

Securonix will enable these teams to deploy, integrate and support its technologies, while Orient takes responsibility for continuing services after the initial deployment.

“Our investment will continue to flow. We are going to give Securonix reach and work with them as an extended arm,” Sawant said.

“This is how we see a total revamp of the Orient and Securonix businesses happening over the next three to five years.”

Managed security becomes the larger mid-market opportunity

The expanded model comes as Securonix sees [India’s mid-market] facing a widening gap between the number of security products organisations have acquired and their ability to operate those technologies effectively.

Kaura said large enterprises have spent the past several years adding security tools, teams and compliance structures. Mid-sized organisations, however, often lack the resources to buy and manage a growing number of specialised cybersecurity technologies.

“The reach into the mid-market is the biggest challenge for any OEM in India because that is where the growth is coming from,” Kaura said.

“The mid-market is also not a segment that prefers buying tools themselves.”

According to Kaura, these organisations want “partners to manage” security operations and provide continuing support rather than leave customers to build and retain every required capability internally.

That expands Orient’s role from product distribution into deployment, integration, technical support, professional services and SOC enablement.

Sawant said enterprises do not necessarily face a shortage of security tools. The larger problem is converting the resulting alerts, telemetry and data into timely security outcomes.

He attributed that difficulty to three factors: a rapidly expanding attack surface, faster and more sophisticated attacks, and a persistent shortage of experienced cybersecurity professionals.

Applications, public cloud environments, mobile devices, IoT systems, remote users and distributed operating locations have all become part of the enterprise attack surface, according to Sawant.

While organisations have invested in products to cover those environments, many still struggle to bring the technologies together and establish the context required to distinguish genuine threats from the wider alert volume.

“A SOC using the same tools may therefore have an enormous amount of data, but not necessarily the right context to identify a genuine threat,” he said.

“When attacks move at that speed, traditional approaches based largely on rules, alerts and manual investigations are no longer sufficient.”

The shortage of skilled SOC analysts, threat hunters, detection engineers and incident response professionals is adding to the problem. Sawant said organisations can invest in sophisticated tools without having enough experienced people to derive their full value.

That creates a larger opening for MSSPs and systems integrators capable of selling operational security outcomes around the underlying platforms.

The companies also see a replacement and modernisation cycle emerging across existing SIEM environments.

There is chaos in the partner community

Kaura said acquisitions, products reaching end of life and wider changes in the security vendor landscape have disrupted parts of the market over the past 18 to 24 months.

He said the resulting uncertainty has affected customers as well as partners reconsidering which platforms they should sell and support.

“There is chaos in the partner community. They don’t know what to sell, whom to support or what to support,” Kaura said.

He added that some customers continue to operate SIEM platforms deployed 10 or 15 years ago, creating demand for modernisation as AI-enabled attacks, data pipeline management and newer analytics capabilities change security requirements.

Securonix is using its cloud-native architecture to address that modernisation opportunity.

Kaura said cloud delivery allows new functionality and upgrades to be made available more broadly without depending on the hardware limitations of individual on-premises deployments.

“That demand is coming again because of disruption and innovation. That is the window of opportunity, and that is what we are capitalising on,” he said.

US expansion adds a second growth path

For Orient, the agreement also creates an international growth opportunity.

Sawant said almost all of Orient’s current revenue comes from India, while the expanded relationship with Securonix gives the company a route into the US market.

Kaura said the model can also support customers operating across both markets.

Many US companies have captive operations in India, allowing Orient to support security operations from India while Securonix provides the underlying technology.

Orient’s existing technical organisation is central to that model.

Of its more than 1,600 employees, around 1,200 are technical professionals certified across different technology vendors, according to Sawant.

Around 80 to 100 people will be trained for Securonix, with the training continuing through a train-the-trainer approach.

The US$5 million investment will be directed towards three areas: SOC infrastructure, cybersecurity resources and operating processes.

Sawant said Orient is investing in its SOC capability and building a larger pool of cybersecurity professionals, while continuing to develop the processes required to run security operations as customer requirements and attack methods change.

“Tools and people may not be as effective if processes are not in place,” he said.

US$5 million is a small bet on the opportunity ahead

The opportunity for Orient is not limited to selling Securonix technology. The company is building a services model around implementation, integration, professional services, technical support and managed security operations.

Sawant said customers are asking for agility, scale and resilience. With no organisation able to guarantee complete protection against attacks, he argued that security strategies must extend beyond prevention and detection to include how quickly operations can return to normal after an incident.

“Cybersecurity cannot stop at prevention and detection,” Sawant said.

“In the event of an incident, how quickly can you come back to normalcy? That’s where resilience plays a very important role.”

The partnership therefore puts recurring services and operational expertise alongside distribution at the centre of Orient’s Securonix strategy.

For Securonix, the arrangement provides access to an established enterprise customer base and a larger technical and services organisation.

For Orient, it creates a broader role around the security platform while opening a path into international engagements.

Sawant said the initial nine-month evaluation gave Orient enough confidence to make the larger commitment.

“I’m ready to bet on this product in a big way,” he said.

He added that the US$5 million investment is small compared with the opportunity the partnership could create.