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Security spending has always been on an upward trajectory, across industries and geographies, irrespective of what the economic and market conditions are—for obvious reasons. You might invest on all the latest technologies, but it’s nearly futile if you can’t protect your business and customer data from hackers. This is exactly why we have seen a nearly 150 percent jump in cyber security budgets over the last ten years.

Spending on overall cyber security is in fact outpacing general IT spending, according to experts. This trend has always reflected quite well on the top lines of partners who have a security focus. Nevertheless, security has a changing definition in today’s digital world. Naturally, it is not limited to the boundaries of an organization’s network anymore. In a borderless digital world, data security has much broader connotations.

Even the biggest organizations that have the best of defense mechanisms in place are suffering data breaches today. does increase in spending ensure better security? I think a significant 60-70 percent of your customers will admit that their security concerns have only increased in the past few months—thanks to Cloud, BYoD, IoT and digital technologies.

Going beyond traditional defense systems

While security is a multi-layered strategy, Identity and access management (IAM) is emerging as a critical area for enterprises. IAM has long been a neglected aspect within an organization. Historically, the security teams’ focus and investments have been around technologies that enable organizations to strengthen their detection and response systems. This primarily comes from the notion that threats are always ‘intentional and external’. But the fact is, internal threats or compromised access management for employees is an equally big concern.

In fact, a significant 70 percent of organizations in the APAC region believe that they had a direct or indirect breach due to employee access, while close to 60 percent say the same about vendors. These are some numbers revealed in a recent survey conducted by the privileged access management company BeyondTrust, with whom Technobind has struck a strategic partnership very recently.

In today’s data-driven world, it’s essential for organizations to grant access to various third parties. Nevertheless, they cannot completely ignore the fact that unintentional employee or vendor breaches are a bigger threat today.

For traditional security partners, this opens up an entirely new pipeline of upselling opportunities. The IAM market is expected to touch a whopping $25 billion in the next five to six years. Let me highlight that we are talking about a close to 15 percent year-over-year growth here!

PAM poised for growth

Within the IAM space, privileged access management (PAM) has demonstrated very strong growth in the market, as organizations strive to combat internal threats and meet new regulatory requirements. Reports indicate that the privileged access management space is the fastest growing segment with close to 30 percent CAGR. That is a significant market opportunity for partners who have been offering traditional security solutions to their customers.

Very clearly, the customer pain points around privileged access for both employees and vendors are mounting. A large number of breaches happen because employees or third parties install, connect or access data that they shouldn’t! Privilege misuse and abuse is a reality, whether organizations like it or not.

I think, this is the right time for partners to open up a new conversation on how to effectively address these concerns without compromising on user experience.

What makes our partnership with BeyondTrust pertinent here is their ability to offer more of an integrated and holistic approach to PAM. In the last two months or so since we signed up with BeyondTrust, we have received an extremely positive feedback from our customers. Their PAM tools promise to escalate an organization’s ability to identify internal threats by almost three times. This means that customers see an immediate value from the investments, which makes this conversation all the more relevant and compelling for our partners.