SAFE AND SECURE

Andrea Carter, Regional Director, Marketing NEMEA, Sophos discusses how the vendor responded to the operational challenges brought up by the Covid-19 pandemic

How has the company reviewed and adjusted its workforce to work from home due to Covid19?

Following the continued spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe, we have reassured our customers and partners that our ability to protect them is uncompromised. All departments, including threat intelligence, protection, and response from SophosLabs, Managed Threat Response, and Global Support Services are operating as normal to provide 24×7 detection, protection, and technical support. These business units already use a global follow-the-sun delivery strategy that allows Sophos to maintain continuity during the regular course of business and is continually improved as needed.

Sophos also has in place a robust set of technologies that enables the majority of our global employees to work from home. We are fully enabled to continue day-to-day business, including product development and other important efforts, remotely.

What have been some of the challenges that you have overcome?

Sophos has implemented a range of precautionary measures to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. We are extremely committed to stopping the spread of COVID-19. We have taken some steps and we will continue closely monitor and adjust as needed.

As of now, most of our employees are working from home. As a global cybersecurity company, we have a geographically diverse workforce that was already set up to work remotely - previous to COVID-19. We have stopped all business travel and support employees who need to shelter in place. We are also not attending or producing regional in-person events, and instead we have postponed our own events or we are holding virtual events as a replacement

Was the company ready in quick time to make a successful transition?

A vast majority of employees are already set up to work remotely, as this was a practice that we used previous to COVID-19. Being a technology company with a geographically diverse workforce, we were already a digitally enabled.

Discuss some of the digital engagements you have executed/ planned with partners/ end-customers?

The working environment has changed beyond recognition and organizations everywhere are supporting a newly remote workforce while remaining operational, productive and secure. For channel businesses, customer service and support are being redefined as they look to help their clients navigate this new landscape.

Sophos is also committed to making it easier for partners to support their customers through the crisis by encouraging the wider cybersecurity community to share threat intelligence through what is now the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Coalition. This grassroots industry group was started by Sophos’ Chief Scientist Josh Saxe.

In addition, we have shifted all our partner and customer engagements to virtual platforms. Very soon we are going to host our partner conferences Andrea Carter Regional Director, Marketing NEMEA, Sophos

virtually. Our major customer and partner engagements like round tables, customer focused events, Sync with Sophos series, SOS Week and Marketing classes are currently happening over virtual platforms. We have also noticed the increase in engagement from our partners and customers.

Do you see the role of digital marketing becoming more important?

The kind of targeting, engagement and measurement matrix that digital marketing provides are beyond comparison. At Sophos, digital marketing is always a large part of our spend, even in the MEA region. Hence, the importance of digital marketing has always been there. However, this phase has certainly made digital marketing the only way to reach out to people and therefore the frequency of activities has certainly increased multiple folds.

Is there a lot of relearning and reskilling expected from employees?

At Sophos, most of the employees and processes were already set for such a scenario previous to COVID-19 and hence there were minimum changes that employees had to deal with.