Five Trends We Expect to See at RSA Conference 2022
By Peggy Tierney Galvin, chief strategy officer, Force4 Technology Communications, LLC
The first major RSA Conference in person since the beginning of the pandemic will arrive in a market that appears on the verge of a “market correction,” injecting uncertainty into a tech sector that had been roaring ahead.
Here are five main trends we’ll be looking for at RSA Conference 2022 in San Francisco next month.
1. Doubling down on partners
When the market was hotter, pursuing technology integrations and partner program participation might have been a secondary consideration. But as investors take a step back and customers evaluate options, cybersecurity vendors that can provide instant insight into which network infrastructure their solutions integrate with right out of the gate are in a much more competitive position.
Customers get the ease of mind from the third-party validation of other established vendors that are already in their stack, and being able to show specific integration use cases demonstrates that a solution has been vetted and tested.
2. Pivot to profit
Security is often dogged by a reputation as a cost center, rather than a profit center, so we expect to see more cybersecurity vendors making the case for how their solution helps customers’ bottom lines.
Vendors with more experienced leadership teams will be moving away from compliance-related or reactionary language and toward how their offering enables the customer to do more with less, either from a staffing or budgetary perspective.
We anticipate a new focus on how security supports entering new markets and opening up new streams of revenue and less on speeds, feeds or features.
3. Getting down to brass tacks on 5G
We will see more examples of security layered over 5G network deployment, especially with sensors and at the edge, as the 5G maturity curve flattens
Vendors will be using as many specifics as possible to show market traction and expertise in an area of critical infrastructure that continues to see expansion
4. Don’t make them guess
Investors, customers and partners are all looking for a safe bet. The old saying “no one ever got fired for buying IBM” is a lesson.
Expect to see more specifics on vendor and solution integrations and less on “cutting edge” or “early-stage opportunity.”
5. Focusing on fundamentals for investors
Vendors will be shifting away from connecting their value prop to flavors of the week like cryptocurrency or crowdsharing, and redoubling focus on infrastructure technologies like storage and networking in vertical markets in telco, finance and manufacturing that are expected to spend heavily to evolve their systems to mitigate supply chain challenges.
Will you be at RSA Conference? We will. We hope to see you there. Reach out for a meeting if you’re free.
What do you expect to see at the show?
