‘Make in India’ Klassify Ensures Data Sensitivity across Organizations

ACPL Systems since past two decades is securing the IT infrastructure of various companies in India.

Founder Vishal Bindra has spearheaded the Delhi headquartered company specializing in security solutions and services including top of line technologies like ATP, DLP, SIEM, to India Inc.

In June last year, during interaction with ACPL’s existing clients, a visible and large gap between user group and IT team was the key pain point at their client’s companies. “People are investing heavily in information security tools but the major problem being that most of these do not involve the end users. Information Security departments have the policy in place but they are unable to involve end users,” says Vishal Bindra, CEO, ACPL Systems. 

More than 80 percent of data at a company is unstructured in nature hence end user data classification becomes paramount for the security posture, he adds.

 “Klassify” came in to being from the need, which was not being catered in the market as per Bindra.

The presence of two major ‘data classification’ vendors Titus and Boldon James in India posed a big market opportunity for Expert TechSource. But it also posed a challenge to build a robust product to compete these global MNCs, says Bindra.

“Klassify is a 100% indigenous product. The entire R&D, Conceptualization, Product roadmap, GTM etcetera are done in-house by team based in India,”says a proud Bindra. Klassify, which makes existing solutions more effective through user group involvement, is the first product in line with the vision, he adds.

 “The product enforces classification by ensuring users declare the sensitivity level of data, how important it is so that different technologies like DLP, Backup, Archiving etc. can take the informed decisions, says Vishal Bindra, CEO, Expert TechSource.

Expert TechSource a wholly owned subsidiary of ACPL Systems was formed in June 2014 for dedicated focus to develop Klassify. The separate company was formed to fill gaps not addressed by available enterprise security solutions since a long time, he says.

A special team of fifteen plus people including technical, sales people for effective push of Klassify across end organizations. Rohit Anand will spearhead Klassify because of his cross functional understanding of Security and especially Data Security and his consultative approach.

Bindra is however confident of stacking against the competition as he says, “Indian Inc. would invest in Klassify because this ‘easy to Deploy, Operate and Manage’ product is developed keeping them in mind. We are not solely focused at selling product features but solve the critical problem at the customer end. Companies will get ‘value for money’ with Klassify.”

Klassify consisting of two key modules – management module and end point module – is available in both Capex and Opex models. Considering the relevance of this product across all verticals and geographies Kalssify has been launched simultaneously in India and APAC. Not only from ACPL’s existing accounts but we received encouraging responses from companies in India and APAC, he says.

This ‘data classification’ product is required by all users but early adopters are large Enterprise, BFSI and Manufacturing and IT/ITES and design companies. The first sale of 2000 licenses of Klassify was executed at a large manufacturing conglomerate (in North India) in February 2015, informs Bindra.

Within six months of the launch, 9000 plus licenses of Klassify have been deployed across four big conglomerate (two manufacturing, one real estate company and one ITES) in India.

The initial advantages for Klassify’s clients have been more end-user involvement as they become have become responsible for every data they create. With the enhancement of DLP, the false positives come down dramatically almost by 85% at these clients. DLP is limited to keywords whereas Klassify goes one step further to create policies and classifies data depending on user and its intent to use that data, he adds.

“Archival Solutions have become more effective to take the informed decisions. And importantly Kalssify has instilled an end user discipline at the customer end,” says Bindra.

Spreading the Wings

ACPL Systems has changed its two decade old ‘Direct to Customer’ approach with Klassify. “Our new GTM is to create the need but the fulfillment will be only through partners. We has adopted innovative revenue sharing model with dedicated partners than just the percentage of sales,” he says.

The initial market acceptance for Klassify looks encouraging for Bindra and his team who are conducing 3 to 4 POCs per week across various industries.

There would be new learning in new software every time and we will incorporate the changes in the new version, he admits. However there have not been any major issue which has put performance issues or any other serious issues as per him. 

The company has two pronged strategy for Klassify – addressing queries directly from existing users and also the new opportunities through partners. “The key business opportunities for us and our partners are selling the product and revenue because of sales, deployment and support service and secondly indirect consulting opportunities for dataflow mapping, end user trainings etc.” he says.

Creating IP is the not only way forward for technology companies as per Bindra but he admits that it helps them stay innovate and hence survive in the competitive tech world.  “It is very different compared to Systems Integrator business. Creating own IP is a difficult path as one needs to be extremely patient, guide very different teams and devise a changed approach for customers,” he adds.

Expert TechSource has an established office at Singapore. We intend to take ‘Make in India’ Klassify globally as we have identified industry veterans for Asia Pacific operations, says Bindra. The company has signed the partners in India, Singapore, Thailand for Klassify.

By end of 2015 Expert Techsource plans to acquire 50 customers and more than 250 customers in the next 3 years. “We will enhance Klassify to a complete document security product with hybrid features of IRM and DLP to control the accidental leakage of Information. We will also help companies to meet their compliance to Data Security Laws of their countries,” he says.

“We have always steered ahead of the curve through cutting edge technologies by understanding customers’ business, their pain points and the investments with existing security solutions. And Klassify is the next big bet for us,” says Bindra at Expert TechSource.

Yogesh Gupta is executive editor at IDG India. You can contact him at yogesh_gupta@idgindia.com or follow @yogsyogi1