ICICI Infotech grabs share in US security pie

ICICI Infotech ventured into the US market with a host of security solutions, even when the economic scene there was discouraging. Today, the company has proved its mettle with an impressive client list. Chitra Padmanabhan has the details on the company’s US strategy

ICICI Infotech’s target is to increase revenues from the US market from 35 percent to at least 50 percent, says manmohan singh

Post 9/11, the economic crisis had shattered all hopes of revival of the IT sector. Business from the US was slow to come and this marked a period of shrinking margins for Indian IT companies. In this environment all that companies could do was devise strategies to survive the slump. Yet ICICI Infotech saw opportunity in the downward trend. With companies beefing up their security initiatives after the terrorist attacks, ICICI Infotech decided to explore the market for physical security solutions in the US.

Says Manmohan Singh, ICICI Infotech-America’s chief operating officer, “Many organisations had just about escaped the horrendous effects of lost data on their businesses and were gearing up to put adequate disaster recovery initiatives in place. ICICI Infotech decided to float its security division in the US as a perfect opportunity to cater to the burgeoning demand.”

Efforts pay off
ICICI Infotech was aware of the fact that entering the US market would mean competing with already existing security players there. So the company felt that before embarking upon conventional security tools like network security, it should focus on physical security, which had a ready market in the form of government agencies. The US government had also set aside 40-50 billion dollars exclusively for ‘homeland’ security initiatives. Cashing in on this opportunity, ICICI launched its digital surveillance product SecurDVR. SecurDVR, with the help of image capture technology, is integrated with closed-circuit television, enabling organisations to monitor any case of trespassing through a video monitoring system. It also provided access to viewing, recording and playback from remote locations. This product caught on very well and ICICI Infotech bagged a few prestigious clients, including the Statewide anti-terrorist unified response network (SATURN); Fire Department of New York (FDNY); New York Police Department (NYPD); Eme-rgency Medical Services (EMS) to name a few. As an add-on feature, the company loaded SecurDVR Solution on to a mobile van, which could be used by state heads to monitor movements even while travelling.

Endeavours in security insurance
After establishing a base in physical security solutions, ICICI gradually experimented on the disaster recovery space. The company observed that after experiencing difficulties in procuring lost data, companies grew increasingly cautious about protecting it. “Though the damage to company’s physical infrastructure could not be totally safeguarded, protecting the data would be very helpful in case companies plan to relocate to some other location,” says Singh. Keeping this need in mind, ICICI floated its product called EssentialServer, designed to help organisations protect and recover data.

Apart from putting up disaster recovery solutions, companies also found it very useful to insure their systems against any kind of intrusion or inevitable disasters. This is where insurance companies came into picture. ICICI Infotech today acts as a mediator between the company to be insured and the insuring company. Being a player in the security space, ICICI has been authorised to present a report to the insurance company detailing the systems deployed by the company that seeks to get itself insured. “The insurance company takes the help of a certifying authority to fix the rate of the premium. The premium to be levied on the company is decided on the basis of the level of security systems in place,” says Singh. ICICI Infotech carries out the security audits in companies through a pool of ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) certified professionals.

The way forward
ICICI Infotech’s strategy to enter the US with security solutions has proved to be just the right thing to do. The company’s US business is contributing approximately 35 percent of the overall revenue, but the company plans to significantly increase this share with security as the major thrust. “ We have set a target wherein at least 50 percent of the revenue is likely to be contributed by our US business by the end of this year,” says Singh. For a product company to grab significant market share in the US speaks volumes about its technological edge.