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Customer demand for managed security services (MSS) is increasing across ASEAN, with the market reporting 18.6 per cent year-on-year growth.
According to new findings from Research and Markets, spending on measures to ensure improved security protection and risk management is on the rise, despite challenges remaining at end-user level.
“Organisations in ASEAN face growing challenges in security operations due to a shortage of professionals and domain expertise, which eventually left them vulnerable to data breaches and other security threats,” the report stated.
Such challenges represent an opportunity for channel partners locally however, as the need for external guidance and expertise heightens.
Furthermore, recent data breaches of more than 46 million mobile users’ personal information in October 2017, and the data breach of SingHealth, are placing pressure on customers to safeguard company assets and information.
“These were typical examples of threats that organisations faced, which may have been a result of the shortage of security professionals,” the report added.
Delving deeper, the market was dominated by Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, in which Singapore contributed to more than 60 per cent of the overall ASEAN revenue.
“There are several factors that drive the strong adoption of MSS in Singapore, of which higher awareness of cyber security, stronger MSS ecosystem, stronger demand for advanced threat management, stricter requirements for compliance, and cost management were the key driving forces,” the report stated.
Meanwhile, Malaysia remained the second largest MSS adopter in 2017, making up 12.4 per cent of the ASEAN market share.
“Businesses in Malaysia tend to stick to basic MSS services,” the report explained. “The drop in market growth over the last one to two years was mainly due to the insourcing trend among banks and large insurance companies, the largest adopters of MSS in the country.”
Specific to sectors, banking, financial services, insurance and government verticals remained the top spenders of MSS in 2017, with increased adoption also observed in manufacturing and education.
Of note to the channel, monitoring and management services remained the largest revenue contributors to the market, generating more than 75 per cent of the overall market value.
“Businesses in ASEAN continue to prefer traditional MSS, be it system health check, security asset monitoring/management, compliance and other perimeter security monitoring/management services,” the report added. “The segment continued its significant growth momentum.
“Moving forward, the MMS segment is set to maintain its strong growth momentum, from 2017 to 2022 and remain the largest revenue contributor.”
