Partners understand local cybersecurity needs best

“Partners have a better understanding of what are the local requirements and how they should be addressed using the technology that we provide,” says OpenText’s Kapil Kaul.

OpenText continues to build on its presence in the Asia Pacific region. In Southeast, the Canadian cybersecurity vendor has set up its hub in Singapore but has operations across the region in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and in Thailand.\

Open Text Corporation recently announced its financial results for the second quarter ended December 31, 2024. Apart from recording total revenues of US$1.335billion, the cybersecurity vendor also experienced 16 consecutive quarters of cloud organic growth.

"OpenText's Q2 results demonstrate the strength of our operating model, delivering US$501 million of adjusted EBITDA, and 37.6% adjusted EBITDA margin, and generating US$307 million of Free Cash Flows (FCF). The Company's top priorities remain total growth, competitive advantage, margin expansion and FCF, while producing upper quartile capital returns." said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO & CTO.

In Southeast Asia, Kapil Kaul, Regional Vice President, Solution Consulting, Asia Pacific at OpenText pointed out that the vendor has also seen growth in its cloud offering, whereby a significant portfolio of its products sit in.

“Not only have we experienced multi-digit growth in our cloud businesses, but also for our customers who actually use products on their premises. We provide options in both areas,” said Kaul in an interview with CRN Asia recently.

The role of partners

Kaul also highlighted the role its partner ecosystem plays in ensuring they continue to achieve significant growth in the region. While growth is a primary focus, Kaul also stated that ensuring partners can deliver customers what they really need when it comes to cybersecurity is paramount for them.

OpenText works with a variety of partners in the region, ranging from strategic partners to value-added resellers and OEM relationships as well. Kaul pointed out that the most important role partners play for OpenText is the reach in the markets they provide.

“We can't be present everywhere. Partners provide their skills and expertise in the markets. They make sure that we are compiled to what's required in that local market and also address localization of the requirements,” said Kaul.

Explaining more, Kaul shared that OpenText provides solutions which are global in nature which partners then localize by providing the services and capabilities that are relevant to the market. As such, partners become a very significant portion of the solution.

One example highlighted by Kaul is Tsinghua Telecom in Taiwan. According to Kaul, they have a significant investment to support Taiwan's smart city initiatives, and they are providing an award-winning solution using our same capabilities.

“They build services on top of it in order to address the local market requirements. There are similar such solutions available by MSSPs around the region where they provide their own enhanced services on top of our platforms,” explained Kaul.

Kaul believes that with the ever-changing regulatory landscape, the requirements are localized, as is the industry.

“I would say it's a step in the right direction. When you have MSSPs in the market, they are close to the ground. They have a better understanding of what are the local requirements and how they should be addressed using the technology that we provide,” added Kaul.

Building the partner ecosystem

“When you look at OpenText, we are one of the most comprehensive solution providers in the industry over the years. We start by build, which is where we come in application security. These are highly rated solutions, which is the software supply chain, including discovery of what do you have in your environment. Because there is so much of technical tech needed to go on to protect identities,” explained Kaul.

Kaul shared that OpenText has very robust solutions in the space of identity management, privilege management, access management, going from humans to an IoT in that space. In threat detect and response, not only does OpenText’s classic cybersecurity solutions like SIEM come in, but also the threat detection platform using AI.

In fact, OpenText recently unveiled its OpenText Threat Detection and Response Solution with AI-powered capabilities. Expected to be generally available on Microsoft Azure, the OpenText Core Threat Detection and Response is deeply integrated with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Entra ID, and Microsoft Security Copilot to empower organizations to stop attacks quickly and efficiently before damage occurs.

“When you look at our partners, they understand the power of the portfolio. And they don't have to go to multiple different vendors. All the security is composable, as I said, but chances are they will find something in our portfolio that actually addresses the needs of the customer,” concluded Kaul.