Symantec lines up consultants for services bonanza

Angus Kidman
Friday, 15 December 2006 04:14

IT Industry - Strategy

Symantec is rapidly expanding its consultant base across the Asia-Pacific region as it launches a range of new services options, including remote management packages which are being tested for an eventual worldwide release.

Symantec this week launched a range of new services for enterprise customers, including the ability to outsource management of antivirus, email and patch management, and a "residency" option for seconding Symantec staff to work on particular implementations. All of which begs the question: who is going to actually do that work, and how many frequent flyer miles will they run up in the process?

Miles Batten, vice president of global consulting services for Asia Pacific, told IT Wire that Symantec already has more than 200 consultants in the region. While the majority of those are in well-established markets such as Australia and Singapore, the fastest growth rate is being experienced in China, Batten said.

While outsourced services relating to backup will be available globally, many of the other options are be trialled in-region first. "The remote services were actually developed and brought to market in the Asia Pacific and Japan region first, and will then be re-exported to the US and EMEA markets," Batten said.

Email is already proving popular. "Customers want management, archiving and restoration of email," Batten said. "It also helps with compliancy laws."

Of course, hiring suitable staff is somewhat more difficult than writing code, especially in the competitive security space. "It's one of our major challenges," Batten said, though he added there was one upside: "Our attrition rate is extremely low."

While Symantec is currently only employing consultants with a minimum of three years experience, Batten said it was likely that it would have to look at hiring graduates eventually if demand continued to grow.

Will such a shift result in Symantec "doing an IBM" and becoming better known as a services organisation than as a software house? Batten doesn't see such a shift just yet. "We're not changing our core focus. It's just driving a need. Our customers need us to implement their software. They don't want it to become shelfware."