With global corporations increasing their cyber-security preparedness post the spread of Covid-19, Tech Mahindra is looking at growing this into a billion-dollar business.

As part of its TechMNxt charter, the company is betting big on next-gen technologies such as cyber-security to solve business problems of the customers.

India’s fifth-largest software exporter has partnered with Hinduja-backed CyQureX, a cyber security firm which is a joint venture between Hinduja Group and NJK Holding.

Talking to BusinessLine , Rajesh Chandiramani, Senior Vice-President and Global Business Head - ESRM (Enterprise Security and Risk Management), AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Data Analytics, Tech Mahindra, said the partnership, along with initiatives taken in the past, will help the company grow this into a billion-dollar business.

While Tech Mahindra does not give a breakup of revenues from cyber security, analysts peg the number currently at $300 million, and the company counts British Telecom and others as its clients.

WFH challenges

The rationale for partnering with CyQureX is the opportunities thrown up as a result of work-from-home and the challenges it presents in terms of securing data.

“With remote working, data does not sit in one place, and it has been seen that when it moves, the chances of it getting breached are high,” added Sunil Bangalore, CEO CyQureX. Cyber-attacks have resulted in CEOs of companies such as Target resigning. Even the White House has not been spared.

While the need for cyber security solutions has existed, in the past three years, several changes in the technology architecture has resulted in an overhauling of older systems, which is a complex and costly affair. With regulations on data, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, companies are figuring out how to tackle this additional cost at a time when top-lines are under pressure.

Seeing all this, during a meeting with GP Hinduja of the Hinduja Group at Davos, CP Gurnani, Managing Director and CEO of Tech Mahindra, mooted the idea of a partnership with CyQureX.

“With rapid transformation of business to digital, we believe cyber-security will be the cornerstone to protect all digital assets, particularly for digital transformation of India and other geographies,” said Hinduja.

Bangalore is of the view that if enterprises really intend to secure data, they should have a strategy that can do so across different states of data — from static to moving. “With IoT (Internet of Things), 5G set to come in, data will need to be secured across different types, and priority needs to be assigned to public, private and sensitive data,” he added.

TechM has partnerships with US-based LIFARS for a digital forensics and incident response cyber security platform, and with John Chambers-backed Lucideus, a global leader in cyber-risk quantification solutions, to conduct annual cyber-security risk assessments for top global organisations.

“With partnerships like this, we are putting in place our building blocks,” stated Chandiramani. However, he did not put a time-frame on achieving the billion-dollar mark, due to market volatility.

The cyber-security market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 10.2 percent — from $152.71 billion in 2018 to $248.6 billion by 2023. Spending on protecting tech infrastructure is predicted to increase from $18.3 billion in 2020 to $24.6 billion in 2023.

“Like it or not, the C-Suite needs to have a cybersecurity strategy which takes a new and proactive approach rather than a reactive one,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO, Greyhound Research.

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