Enterprise security costs rise as firms face skill shortage
Information security spending in India touch $1.7bn in 2018, says Gartner
Enterprise information security spending in India is expected to touch $1.7 billion (around ~120 billion) in 2018, up 12.5 per cent from 2017 driven largely by a lack of skilled security professionals, says research firm Gartner.
Within this, security services market is expected to grow faster at 13 per cent to touch $1 billion in 2019 when the overall market will be $1.9 billion. This skills shortage is also driving enterprises to spend more on security tools and services to cope with the demand.
“Skill shortages continue to persist although India is better placed than a lot of other regions. But due to the high demand for security skills, a lot of end user organisations are not able to attract skilled resources,” says Siddharth Deshpande, research director at Gartner.
Manufacturing and utility, FMCG, retail and ecommerce, logistics and energy companies, among others, are facing this dearth as they are increasingly seeking skilled resources, who in turn opt for betterknown technology firms for a greater career scope.
Such organisations, in turn, are forced to look for security service providers to consult or outsource their security needs, Deshpande adds.
In the coming years, products such as integrated risk management software, data security, infrastructure protection and identity as well as network management will see high demand.
These established security product segments benefit from strong growth rates, thanks to net new adopters who are looking to rapidly increase their investments in security technology. Additionally, existing buyers are looking to acquire moreadvanced capabilities in these areas.
Organisations continue to feel the pressure to find the right people with right skills to grow their security teams, particularly given the 24X7 nature of security operations. These skills shortages are driving the demand for security services, particularly security outsourcing, managed security services and security consulting.
Kris Lakshmikant, founder and managing director of HR firm Headhunters, notes that over the past 18 months itself, there has been a steep increase in demand for cyber security professionals. “The demand is such that even at 3 years of experience people can command salaries of ~1.2 to 1.5 million per annum and at it goes up to ~9 million for professionals with 15 years of experience,” he says.
This demand is driven by the prevalence of Cloud services as well as a greater visibility of cyber attacks and data breaches in recent times, he adds.
The investments on security professionals make sense when one considers that the Indian financial sector reported the highest per capita cost of data breaches at ~6,210 whereas the least average cost was reported by organisations in the public sector at ~1,813 in 2017, according to a security report by IBM.
Mayur Saraswat, head of sales and digital at TeamLease, says with the adoption General Data Protection Regulation in Europe, the demand from companies for data protection and cyber security professionals has increased manifold.
“Within the next year itself, we can expect a 50 per cent jump in demand and this demand will be for skills rather than experience,” he said.