RSA exec on new ownership: We're excited to 'fully unleash' our power

Security vendor’s VP of solutions opens up to CRN on finding the opportunity in the current coronavirus crisis and overhauling its reputation

RSA's new owner should make partners excited about the opportunities it will "unleash" for them, according to its VP of solutions Ben Desjardins.

Speaking to CRN, Desjardins declined to comment specifically on the deal, which saw Dell agree to sell it to a consortium of investors for $2bn (£1.6bn) last month but said that there is a lot for partners be excited about and that the current COVID-19 crisis is highlighting the "mission criticality" of its offerings.

"The current situation is reinforcing not only our customer loyalty but also highlighting the true mission criticality of a lot of the technologies that we provide - that isn't limited to our multifactor strong authentication capabilities," he said.

"When you have a 40-year history around a set of technology, it takes time to change the market's perception of what you're all about. We've spent a lot of time over the past 10 years ensuring that organisations have a good familiarity with our full set of modern authenticators.

"The current circumstances are really creating an excellent opportunity to reinforce that familiarity with customers because that is fundamentally the way that they're going to deploy that technology quickly.

"Speaking more broadly on the divestiture, I would hope that partners share our excitement. We're very excited about the opportunity to unleash the full power of RSA and its talent base and accelerated innovation. "

The new ownership will also provide RSA with the speed it needs to keep up with the transformation its customers are undergoing, Desjardins (pictured) claimed.

"When we talk to customers about digital transformation and digital risk, one of the things we hear from them is the big pressure that they feel with speed and keeping pace with the change of the organisation - and that burden comes right back to us," he said.

"We have to have the ability to move at a speed that is in line with our customers' need to move. So we're excited about the opportunities to accelerate the innovation areas and some of the other benefits that independence will bring."

The current global pandemic has put pressure on many businesses to undertake massive digital transformation faster than they had planned, which can cause challenges to data access and privacy, according to Desjardins.

"We see some elements of digital transformation that were part of most organisations' roadmaps suddenly turned upside down and they're having to accelerate certain uses of technology just to maintain basic and critical business operations," he elaborated.

"There's obviously a ton of attention on the remoteness of the workforce, but we also have situations where workers are being asked to lean in and do things that are outside the normal scope of their role.

"In addition to securing remote access, you have to start thinking about appropriate levels of data access and credentials to allow people to do things that are a little outside their normal role."

This acceleration in digital transformation and the new working practices for organisations opens up new opportunities for partners, he said.

"As it relates to partners, there's a lot of opportunities there," he added.

"There's no silver-bullet single piece of technology that enables remote workforce and security elements to that workforce. For our partners, these dynamics strengthen the opportunity to work with a vendor that has a lot to offer across all those channels."