SecurityMEA speaks with Aadesh S. Gawde, Chief Innovation Officer at ProVise Consulting about their company operations and plans going forward.
Can you elaborate on your current position at ProVise Consulting and what led you to start this company?
I am heading ProVise Consulting as the Chief Innovation Officer where I act as the principal consultant for cyber security and GRC business for the last 6 years. I have 20 years of experience, out of which a major portion has been in consulting. Before starting ProVise, I was working with Ernst & Young as Senior Manager heading the Governance, Information Security, Computer Forensics and IT Audit service, where I started the cyber security and GRC practice in the Middle East. After 9 years at the company, I was well prepared to start on my own and that is how ProVise happened. Initially starting only as an independent consultant, I realized the challenges in the market and the need to offer real advisory services, and so I established ProVise in the year 2011.
Can you provide me with a description of the company?
ProVise aims to provide best of the breed Information Technology management advisory and governance services to clients in Middle East and Africa in three major domains of consulting, technology and outsourcing. We are a research-driven advisory firm specializing in GRC and Cyber Security professional services for regional organizations. The GCC team consists of 27 consultants with 12 clients and year on year average growth of 80% in the last four years.
How long have you been operating in the region and where do you stand in terms of geographical spread?
We have been in the Middle East for the past 7 years with direct presence in UAE. We have significantly expanded since we established ourselves in the region in 2012. We have already established our footprint in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and UAE and are now on the road to expansion. We aim to double our team within the next few months in order to strengthen ourselves to explore new geographies.
Who are your ideal customers and which industries are your prime focuses?
Our ideal customers are IT enabled businesses that leverage digital opportunities and thus subjected to cyber risk exposure. BFSI, Oil & Gas, government, aviation, telecom, healthcare and manufacturing are some of the industry verticals where we currently have a customer base.
What do you offer your customers and why should they select you over your competitors?
On the cybersecurity side we take end-to-end responsibility right from threat identification, detection and prevention to threat mitigation. We do not sell products but only offer consulting services to advise our customers on the product best suited to their requirements. Our trained and certified team has the necessary technical know-how of the products available in the market to guide the customers to the right technology and products. While the implementation is done by the customer, we provide the expertise on how it will be done.
Since we have not tied up with any vendors, we provide our customers the added advantage of offering the right set of solutions to address their cybersecurity requirements, rather than piling them with unnecessary products.
What are your expansion plans for the coming years?
This year the focus will strongly be on research and product development. We are expanding our footprint in the Middle East which starts with establishing direct presence in Kuwait.
Besides Middle East, we also plan to grow the company into other territories across the globe by 2020. Our strategy for the coming three years will be to replicate our sales setup in the Middle East on a broader global level.