In this interview, Dr Or Sela, Channel Account Manager at F5, explains how companies can achieve more innovation, improved customer experiences, and a strong competitive edge with modern security solutions.
Mr Sela, please briefly explain briefly what F5 Networks does and what environment your customers come from. What requirements do your customers approach you with?
Dr Or Sela: The digital world creates opportunities: It connects people across great distances, gives us more time for the important things and makes information, products and services more accessible. But these advantages also have a downside. Website outages, large-scale data leaks and ransomware attacks can cost companies millions, while individuals suffer financial losses and identity theft.
Almost half of the world’s application traffic flows through F5’s technology every day. This reach gives us unparalleled insight into the challenges and threats facing modern and traditional applications. Whether we’re ensuring that applications are always fast and available, enabling their networking across different clouds or protecting them from attacks, we secure the applications that drive our customers’ business operations. This enables our customers to provide their users with an excellent experience at all times.
What are the specific challenges in your industry at the moment and how are you working on them?
Applications are at the centre of all digital experiences – and when they are secure, they unlock enormous potential and create real added value. as apps become more central to digital life, protecting them becomes more challenging. Modern apps consist of complex architectures, are often distributed across different cloud environments and are connected by a growing number of APIs. This increasing complexity requires more expertise and resources, while at the same time creating more and more vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cybercriminals.
From the very beginning, F5 has focused on applications: for over 25 years, we have been protecting, optimising and delivering applications for the world’s largest organisations. As a result, we have developed a deep understanding of how apps work – and how to make them even better. From developers in the lab and engineers in our Security Operations Centre to account managers in the field and executives on the Board, our team is highly trained in applications. We ensure every app is fast and reliable so our customers can focus on what’s most important to them: their business.
How do your security solutions help to accelerate your customers’ digital transformation?
Our security solutions play an important role in accelerating our customers’ digital transformation by covering key areas that are essential to the successful implementation of digital initiatives. Digital transformation often involves the introduction of new technologies and an expanding digital presence, which can introduce new security risks. F5 security solutions such as web application firewalls (WAFs) and DDoS protection ensure that applications are protected against cyberthreats, enabling companies to innovate safely and with risk-awareness.
In addition to the security aspect, performance optimisation also plays a key role. Our Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) improve the performance of web applications through load balancing and through efficient traffic management. This shortens response times and significantly improves the user experience – a prerequisite for enabling customers to interact smoothly with offerings in the digital world and successfully drive transformation.
Another important factor is compliance with regulations and governance requirements, which are essential for digital transformation in many industries. F5 security solutions help companies meet compliance standards by providing comprehensive surveillance, logging and reporting functions. This ensures that digital initiatives can be implemented in line with the required regulatory requirements and governance guidelines.
In summary, our security solutions support digital transformation by providing reliable security, optimising performance and ensuring compliance requirements are met. This enables companies to innovate faster, improve the customer experience and strengthen their competitiveness in an increasingly digital world.
What opportunities does digitalisation offer us in the future?
We see a future in which digitalisation opens up numerous opportunities for both companies and individuals. Some of the key opportunities that digitalisation offers include:
– Improved customer experiences: Digitalisation enables companies to provide their customers with personalised, seamless and engaging experiences. By leveraging data analytics and advanced technologies, companies can better understand their customers’ needs and preferences, leading to higher satisfaction and long-term customer loyalty.
– Improved security: As digitalisation advances, security remains a key issue. Comprehensive security solutions will enable companies to protect their digital assets, data and applications from increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats. This will create a secure digital ecosystem in which companies and customers can operate with confidence.
– Sustainability: Digital transformation can contribute to more sustainable business models. By optimising the use of resources and reducing waste through efficient digital processes, companies can minimise their environmental footprint. Our solutions support these developments by ensuring that digital infrastructures are designed efficiently and securely.
In summary, digitalisation offers us enormous potential for better customer experiences, increased security and more sustainable processes. These opportunities will enable companies to succeed in an increasingly digital world and create long-term value for themselves and their customers.
How did you decide to become an eco member? How do you expect your membership of the association to support you in your work?
We decided to become a member of the eco Association because we were immediately convinced by the initial discussions with the team and our exchange with the members. We were particularly impressed by the way in which the members and partners organise themselves in this network in order to create added value, exchange knowledge and complement each other in the complex security landscape.
As our market access is through distributors and partners such as our distributor Exclusive Networks, we appreciate the opportunity to include these important partners in the eco membership. This opens up additional opportunities for synergies and strengthens our position in the network.
Our interactions with the eco team prior to the partnership were consistently trustworthy and positive, further solidifying our decision. We are very much looking forward to the joint events and exchange. Projects are becoming increasingly complex, and customers expect consolidation of solutions and added value for their IT budgets. The requirements are constantly evolving and becoming more dynamic. With the support of the eco Association, our partners can count on valuable resources, and we at F5 can also contribute our expertise, Professional Services and pre-sales support to this partnership.
Thank you very much, Mr Sela!
