Mahindra SSG bets on infosec for growth

Pragati Simlote

The enterprise derisking business is slated to be a $6 billion opportunity worldwide and Mahindra Special Services Group (SSG) is eyeing a large pie of this market.

The company provides four specific services in this area: Eterprise risk management (ERM), BS 7799, change management and technology hardening.

Mahindra SSG has come a long way in becoming a key player in the field of enterprise derisking solutions and information security (infosec) with a core focus on protecting organizational innovations.

The group was started about three years ago with an internal requirement to protect the innovation in Mahindra & Mahindra. The company soon realized the financial benefits of protecting innovation and that by doing this they were looking at more than IT security but at people, processes, technology, etc. So the division was spun off as a separate group, which currently has about 70 people and has operations in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore and has presence in London and Singapore.

Enumerating the drivers of enterprise derisking, Mahindra SSG CEO Captain Raghu Raman said, “Factors like compliance, increase in competitiveness and India moving towards a knowledge driven economy are driving the need for companies to secure information and derisking has become the key issue. We are also seeing a lot of pull from overseas companies who apart from choosing their outsourcing partner also have to choose a partner to fulfill the security requirement.”

Elaborating on the work that Mahindra SSG does, he said, “Companies have internal processes and sub processes and are also connected with outside agencies like customers, suppliers, etc. We establish a risk map for the organization and work with the organization to find out intrinsic risks and disruptive risks. Then we lay down policies and procedures to address risks, technology hardening and change management among the people.”

With time companies are realizing that information is also money and lots of organizations are going for infosec. According to Captain Raman, the early movers in this space were FMCG companies like HLL. Some MNCs have also gone into it because they are driven by their principles. Other Indian companies adopting infosec include Mahindra, UTI Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Hindustan Constructions, etc. Banking and financial companies and pharma companies are also serious players in this area.