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Interview: Ray Stanton
NEWS
Interview: Ray Stanton We do security too, BT’s head of business continuity, security & governance tells Eleanor Dallaway The trend for consolidation in the IT market is eating up more and more small vendors. Surveying the hundreds of stands on the Infosecurity Europe show floor with Ray Stanton invites the question; if the trend for consolidation continues, will we be seeing only four or five vendors exhibiting in five years time? “That may not be far wrong”, says Stanton, contemplatively. “We have a duty of care to small companies in the industry, and that’s why I invest both time and money into their development.” Consolidation often works to the advantage of both the acquiring company and the acquired, with each company complimenting the other, says Stanton. “One of the problems is that these techies have all these brilliant ideas, and then think ‘how do we now take this higher and get some more investment?’ They need someone to run it as a business, rather than a pet engineering project.” This formula certainly seems to have worked for BT’s October 2006 purchase of Counterpane. “Bruce Schneier [founder and chief technology officer of BT Counterpane] for example is a brilliant mathematician and a big-head brain,” says his colleague Stanton, “but he isn’t interested in the management or budget. You need a combination of both the brain and the business management.” “Since the Counterpane acquisition, BT have seen a 50% increase in sales. Our customer satisfaction has gone up massively, and that’s how you know you must be getting something right. We are driving a true business partnership with Counterpane and asking them to try to take the same approach and see us as partners, not competition. It’s a really good example of buying a people business.” So how did the idea to join the two companies come about? “I had lunch with Paul Stitch [Counterpane’s chief executive] and he told me they were looking for a large company to drive their local business. We talked through it all and very quickly realised there was a lot of symmetry,” remembers Stanton. “Counterpane had the engineering brain power, but needed an exit plan. BT have the business people to complement that.” “When you acquire a company it is all too easy to pull the arms and legs off them,” says Stanton. “It’s all too easy to lose the whole brand and as a result, the staff lose a sense of who they work for. Security is a people’s business and losing the essence of the business can be crucial. A really good example of this is what MCI has done with NetSec [now Verizon Business]. They are struggling so badly that MCI are now having to partner with people like Symantec for deals to sort themselves out. Now that’s not me swiping at them, it’s just an example of how an acquisition can lead to arms and legs being pulled off.” “It can be really boring in business,” he adds, of getting the people part right. “We spend as much time in our jobs than we do in our own personal lives. If we’re going to be here, let’s really enjoy it. It’s going to be hard and challenging, but let’s make sure that we get the time to
14
MAY/JUNE 2007
“When you acquire a company it is all too easy to pull the arms and legs off them”
challenge ourselves to grow. I don’t want to spend my whole career and then say ‘wow that was boring’, security is boring enough as it is.” Telling the global head of BT security that BT is primarily known for telecommunications and not security is risky territory. After a brief flash of disappointment and disapproval, Stanton admits that this is a fairly common perception. “It’s our fault that people think that way. But security has always been a part of BT. What we’re now doing is going out there and demonstrating it as part of our core business.” “We’ve never communicated it, branded it or grabbed mindshare with people before,” adds Stanton, who was hired to begin this process, including the consolidation of relationships within BT and creating specific media programmes. “We’re focusing on the consolidation of our portfolio at the moment. Instead of trying to be everything and do everything for all people, we decided that if we’re not the best, we’ll leave it to others. We are the best, or certainly considered the best, in the world in our portfolio. Outside of that, we know a man that can.” So there you go. With the increasing popularity of the BT-sponsored IT security journalism awards, and with Stanton on a mission to educate young people about security – starting with his seven year old daughter asking her teacher whether the class computer’s anti-virus software was up to date – Stanton hopes to make the perception that BT is just a telecoms company a thing of the past. For a longer version of this interview, see infosecurity-magazine.com
Interview: Ray Stanton We do security too, BT’s head of business continuity, security & governance tells Eleanor Dallaway The trend for consolidation in the IT market is eating up more and more small vendors. Surveying the hundreds of stands on the Infosecurity Europe show floor with Ray Stanton invites the question; if the trend for consolidation continues, will we be seeing only four or five vendors exhibiting in five years time? “That may not be far wrong”, says Stanton, contemplatively. “We have a duty of care to small companies in the industry, and that’s why I invest both time and money into their development.” Consolidation often works to the advantage of both the acquiring company and the acquired, with each company complimenting the other, says Stanton. “One of the problems is that these techies have all these brilliant ideas, and then think ‘how do we now take this higher and get some more investment?’ They need someone to run it as a business, rather than a pet engineering project.” This formula certainly seems to have worked for BT’s October 2006 purchase of Counterpane. “Bruce Schneier [founder and chief technology officer of BT Counterpane] for example is a brilliant mathematician and a big-head brain,” says his colleague Stanton, “but he isn’t interested in the management or budget. You need a combination of both the brain and the business management.” “Since the Counterpane acquisition, BT have seen a 50% increase in sales. Our customer satisfaction has gone up massively, and that’s how you know you must be getting something right. We are driving a true business partnership with Counterpane and asking them to try to take the same approach and see us as partners, not competition. It’s a really good example of buying a people business.” So how did the idea to join the two companies come about? “I had lunch with Paul Stitch [Counterpane’s chief executive] and he told me they were looking for a large company to drive their local business. We talked through it all and very quickly realised there was a lot of symmetry,” remembers Stanton. “Counterpane had the engineering brain power, but needed an exit plan. BT have the business people to complement that.” “When you acquire a company it is all too easy to pull the arms and legs off them,” says Stanton. “It’s all too easy to lose the whole brand and as a result, the staff lose a sense of who they work for. Security is a people’s business and losing the essence of the business can be crucial. A really good example of this is what MCI has done with NetSec [now Verizon Business]. They are struggling so badly that MCI are now having to partner with people like Symantec for deals to sort themselves out. Now that’s not me swiping at them, it’s just an example of how an acquisition can lead to arms and legs being pulled off.” “It can be really boring in business,” he adds, of getting the people part right. “We spend as much time in our jobs than we do in our own personal lives. If we’re going to be here, let’s really enjoy it. It’s going to be hard and challenging, but let’s make sure that we get the time to
14
MAY/JUNE 2007
“When you acquire a company it is all too easy to pull the arms and legs off them”
challenge ourselves to grow. I don’t want to spend my whole career and then say ‘wow that was boring’, security is boring enough as it is.” Telling the global head of BT security that BT is primarily known for telecommunications and not security is risky territory. After a brief flash of disappointment and disapproval, Stanton admits that this is a fairly common perception. “It’s our fault that people think that way. But security has always been a part of BT. What we’re now doing is going out there and demonstrating it as part of our core business.” “We’ve never communicated it, branded it or grabbed mindshare with people before,” adds Stanton, who was hired to begin this process, including the consolidation of relationships within BT and creating specific media programmes. “We’re focusing on the consolidation of our portfolio at the moment. Instead of trying to be everything and do everything for all people, we decided that if we’re not the best, we’ll leave it to others. We are the best, or certainly considered the best, in the world in our portfolio. Outside of that, we know a man that can.” So there you go. With the increasing popularity of the BT-sponsored IT security journalism awards, and with Stanton on a mission to educate young people about security – starting with his seven year old daughter asking her teacher whether the class computer’s anti-virus software was up to date – Stanton hopes to make the perception that BT is just a telecoms company a thing of the past. For a longer version of this interview, see infosecurity-magazine.com