In an exclusive interview with CyberCentric, Shahd El Dokky, Regional Product Manager, PhishRod explains the ingredients for PhishRod success and what do we expect from PhishRod in the year 2022.
CC: How did PhishRod perform during the Year 2021?
Shahd: We had an exceptional year and we achieved 200% YOY growth. We truly emerged as the fastest-growing cyber security awareness & phishing incident response platform and further cemented our position as a leader in the Middle East & North Africa region. Interestingly 30% of our new business was displacement where customers were using a competitor solution which truly shows that the customers see a lot of value in PhishRod.
CC: Cyber Security Awareness is a saturated market, what makes PhishRod stand out?
Shahd: PhishRod believes in end-user empowerment and behavior change. We strive to touch all the points in the cyber security equation where end-users are involved that is why PhishRod combines Phishing Readiness, Security Awareness & Policy Compliance under a single suite. Our vision is to transform end-user behavior through awareness & empowerment. Below are some of the salient features which have made PhishRod stand out technically
- Ability to host the solution both On Premise & On Cloud
- Completely localized & customized content & characters for awareness content
- Analytics driven approach for Phishing Readiness, Security Awareness & Policy Compliance
- 100+ Built-In Threat Intelligence Feeds to analyze, quarantine & delete suspicious emails.
- Development of Enterprise Security Awareness Framework
CC: Can you please elaborate more on the “Enterprise Security Awareness Framework”?
Shahd: Enterprise Security Awareness Framework is a working document that outlines the steps that need to be taken by an organization to bring about an organizational behavior change with respect to cyber security. PhishRod team develops an enterprise security awareness framework before the deployment of the solution begins. It defines the strategy for organizational behavior change, awareness calendar, key performance indicators & a complete roadmap for end-user awareness & empowerment.
CC: What role the partner network has played in PhishRod success?
Shahd: PhishRod has a 100% channel-driven approach and we have an effective & incentive-driven channel program that guarantees a higher return of investments in terms of margin to all our partners. We are thankful to all our partners and share our success with them.
CC: What to expect from PhishRod in the Year 2022?
Shahd: The Year 2022 will be a game-changer for the cyber security awareness industry. While the consolidation and further expansion in GCC remains a core, we are investing heavily in growing markets of north & east Africa. We have recently announced our expansion in Egypt and are doing a big launch event in the last week of Feb 2022. Marketing is a big component of our plan as you will see us taking a center stage at GISEC, GITEX & other regional events.
From a product perspective, we are about to announce a lot of integrations that will give an altogether new look to the phishing incident response market segment and a whole lot of new content series is also part of the product roadmap.