“Now there are no solutions that can 100% replace Western ones”

About competition in the new market conditions and the prospects for replacing foreign products in the field of data protection told Kommersant director for cybersecurity MTS Evgenia Naumova.

– How did the departure of Western ones affect Russian vendors?

— Customers are faced with the fact that the products of our developers in most segments are far from the functionality of Western vendors. Firstly, it created difficulties in choosing replacements, so many customers were not able to efficiently invest their budgets in full. That is, the market did not grow as fast as predicted.

Secondly, our vendors received a huge amount of requests for product improvements. Imagine that a small niche market participant receives dozens of requests at once from organizations from the top 100, who are used to the fact that the vendor does almost everything for them. If the vendor has 100-150 people, it is physically impossible to provide a wide range of services and their quality. Therefore, it turned out that some undertook obligations, but could not fulfill them, deadlines were often postponed, there were disappointments. To summarize, there are no solutions in Russia now that can 100% replace Western ones.

– Will Russian companies continue to buy some “departed” solutions by workarounds?

– The public sector will not take such risks due to increased responsibility for using solutions from unfriendly countries. Commercial companies will look for workarounds for some time, but gradually Russian vendors improve their products and win the trust of customers.

— Why are there not many information security products in Russia that customers are used to?

– Major Russian players did not invest in these decisions. Partly because the niches were filled, partly because there were other priorities and strategies. In addition, these are large expenses with a fuzzy payback horizon. Small developers simply could not afford such projects and still cannot. These are, for example, network protection tools, software and hardware systems for information protection.

— Why has there been no change of leaders in the Russian market this year, despite the withdrawal of Western companies and entry into the segment of new Russian ones?

“It won’t happen quickly. Large vendors with significant project scaling resources were able to quickly respond to growing demand. Small companies, which almost always work in narrow niches, when faced with new customer requests, could not compete with large ones. It takes time and serious human resources to rebuild the creation of products and adapt them to new demands. It is always easier for large companies to attract them.

Will the alignment of forces change in 2023?

– Of course, although the process is just beginning, its result will be visible in 2024-2025. The key drivers of change are market consolidation, government support for cybersecurity market players, growing demand for Russian solutions. But the main thing is the acquisition by large companies of specialized cybersecurity developers. The one who can provide the customer with complete closure of business risks and cyber stability will win. This cannot be done with small resources.

– Can IT products from friendly countries, such as Turkey, appear in the Russian Federation?

— I think we are attractive for Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, for many countries. Companies can exit, of course. But products from these countries are not the most famous, and it will take time to localize and build relationships with Russian customers.

— Do you consider such expansion a risk for yourself?

– Not with such regulation – it is more and more aimed at supporting Russian products. But I am in favor of not limiting ourselves to the comfortable Russian market, but bringing our products up to the world standard. I would like to finally show that we can.

Interviewed by Tatyana Isakova