Smarttech247 Group plc (LON:S247) Chief Executive Officer Raluca Saceanu caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their new multi-year contract, the reasons why people are choosing the company, and what investors can expect in the coming months.
Q1: This is obviously great news for Smarttech247 Group. Raluca, could you just tell us a little bit more about the contract and how you’ll be helping this global packaging company?
A1: We are absolutely delighted to have won this contract. The company in question is impressive, they are leaders in terms of sustainable packaging and in many ways their company values match our company values.
The client was unhappy with their previous provider and after a thorough evaluation of the process, they decided that our value proposition, our services, our approach, and our company values were a much better fit than their previous provider.
We will be offering them with 24/7 Managed Detection and Response where we will be using our platform VisionX for both their IT and OT environment. They have very specific requirements as they operate in a fast moving environment and we proved to them that we are 100% able to match these strict cybersecurity requirements.
Q2: You mentioned that they were unhappy with their previous provider. Is this a common theme these days? What were some of the reasons why they decided to go with the Group?
A2: 95% of the conversations that we are having with prospects relates to the fact that they are unhappy with their current provider, and there are a few reasons for this.
Number one, a lot of MDR providers have a very reactive approach to service delivery rather than a proactive approach. The reason why this doesn’t work is because the cybersecurity industry is constantly evolving, it’s very dynamic, and as an MDR provider, you’re constantly on the front lines of cybersecurity. So, this means that you need to make sure that you prioritize initiatives that look at continuous improvement, risk management and holistic threat intelligence understanding.
Secondly, there’s a massive lack of transparency in the MDR space. Organizations don’t get full visibility into what their MDR provider is doing for them, there’s a lack of reporting and a lack of commitment to transparency. Lack of flexibility is also another reason why organizations are not happy with their MDR providers. And generally the main reason is that the service and the capabilities are poor.
Our clients choose us because we make it our mission to provide them with operational excellence, with full transparency and a great platform that helps them really reduce their risk.
We’re always committed to ensure, firstly, a really good onboarding process, which is important, and secondly, we’re committed to be proactive rather than reactive. Thirdly, and this is really important, we form a partnership with our clients, no client of ours refers to us as a supplier, they refer to us as a partner.
This is important to us. We understand their business intimately, we understand the risks that they have, and most MDR providers don’t focus on reducing their clients risk in a quantifiable way. With us, we make it our mission. We have a promise that we help them reduce their risk by 50% in the first 180 days.
Q3: Finally then, what can investors expect to see from Smarttech247 Group in the next few months?
A3: Well, we’re working on securing more contracts like this one, they are multi-year contracts and include our VisionX platform.
We’ve also launched some incredibly exciting features in our platform VisionX, where we’re using more artificial intelligence to make our clients’ operations easier and to focus on risk reduction. As a matter of fact, I’m just back from New York City where we had some fantastic meetings, we’re growing our operations and we’re aiming to increase our client base on the East Coast.
We’re actively helping our clients navigate complexities of, for example, NIST2 and DORA, which is an area that’s growing for us as well so lots of new exciting things happening.
