Delphix – letting data flow across APAC

Richard Gerdis, Delphix’s GM and VP of Sales in APJ, discusses the tech firm’s expansion strategy in the APAC region and the loyal clients that make it possible

Redwood, California-based Delphix is committed to wiping data friction away. Whether between DevOps and DataOps teams or companies and digital transformation specialists, the need to share data in a rapid, secure and relevant fashion grows by the day. To achieve this, a growing number of firms around the world are leveraging Delphix’s Dynamic Data Platform.

Where there is technological advancement there is an influx of data that needs to be kept secure while remaining accessible to those that need it. With this growth there is also increased demand for data specialists (of which there is a global shortage), database administrators and storage space for the data itself. Richard Gerdis, General Manager and Vice President of Sales for Delphix’s Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) operations, says the Dynamic Data Platform solves each of these problems for firms in the midst of digital transformation, as well as for new companies seeking a significant boost in data efficiency.

Highlighting data consumers, Gerdis says that this increase in data volumes is matched by the amplified desire to harness it at speed. “What we’re seeing is this huge rise in the amount of data and the number of projects being undertaken within organisations,” he says. “We’re really looking to move faster and to be able to manage that data across a much wider spectrum in an organisation.” Data operators, conversely, are contending with a huge increase in governance of risk that correlates with the sheer mass of data they must manage and maintain governance for. “Between your data consumers and your data operators, we have what we call data friction. These teams are not working well together, and Delphix’s mission is really to eliminate that data friction and bring these two teams closer together. We empower the data operators, and we make data quickly, easily and securely accessible for the data consumers,” Gerdis says.

These objectives are underpinned by Delphix’s security practices and commitment to ensuring that the right data flows only into the right hands. The firm achieves this through data masking, which itself is more secure than encryption through being far harder to bypass. “With masking, we take a field, for example our customer record, and we mask it in that it may be your first name, my surname. It might be someone’s credit card details and somebody else’s address details. While it acts and looks like real data, which is incredibly important when you’re developing and testing applications, if it gets into the wrong hands it’s absolutely useless. It’s meaningless data.”

As the Asia Pacific region experiences enormous technological growth, particularly in Delphix’s ASEAN markets comprising Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, Delphix is ideally positioned to capitalise on this market opportunity. “We’ve increased our new business by 50% in the past six months and we’ve brought on eight new enterprise customers in the last six months in APJ,” says Gerdis, adding that the firm has doubled its headcount in the region over the same period.

With each of its APAC customers renewing their year-to-date subscriptions, Delphix has certainly struck a chord with the market. To name a few, the firm counts Microsoft, Capgemini, Cognizant, Accenture and DXC amongst its customers. “When we look in Asia Pacific and Japan, we act to drive all of our business through partners,” Gerdis says. In Japan, Delphix has accelerated its growth via partnerships with technology companies such as CTC, KK Ashisuto and Inside Technology, leveraging routes into the market through established players.

On 19 November this year, Japanese car manufacturer Mazda announced that it has selected Delphix’s data management solution, provided by KK Ashisuto, to harness DataOps for accelerated digital transformation and innovation. Delphix’s partner driven strategy has proven successful across the region, a further example being the business won in Australia through its alliance with Dimension Data.

“When it comes to smaller niche partners, they’ve got incredible knowledge of the geography that they play in,” says Gerdis. “We have partners in Malaysia, for example, that have great experience working with Malaysian organisations. They open doors for us, and they’re an extension of Delphix in that they help to continue to drive those relationships and then help us deploy the solution as well.”

Ultimately, Delphix’s expansion across the APAC region would not be possible without their high quality solution backing every step forward, solving real problems for firms wherever it is found. Gerdis highlights resource constraints as one of these issues holding companies back during their digital transformation programs. “As data grows, the resources required to manage that data becomes exponential as well.”

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Delphix works with a healthcare provider in the region that has seen a 400% increase in its revenues over the past six years, and its employee headcount also quadrupled while its health insurance members tripled. “Over that six year period, their IT headcount doubled. By using Delphix whilst their headcount doubled, their database administrator headcount remained constant, and that was through the fact that we could actually provide self-service capabilities through to the data consumers. This really frees up your database administrators and the traditional resources that manage data, to actually do their day jobs.”

The resource-related benefits of utilising Delphix’s solution does not stop with database administrators, however. “Delphix saved them a lot of storage. They actually reduced their storage from about five petabytes down to 300 terabytes. While we’re seeing data grow and the impact it has on infrastructure, Delphix is helping to bring that down by lowering storage costs and streamlining the process for data flow through an organisation. We can do a lot more with a lot less.” As Delphix looks to continue its expansion across APAC, Gerdis says the firm will continue with its focus on ANZ, Southeast Asia, ASEAN and Japan, but that its ambitions do not end there. “We will look to expand our presence in Hong Kong, China, South Korea, and India in the near future,” says Gerdis.

“The number of approaches that I get every week from organisations across APJ is astounding,” he continues. “So many people are seeking out Delphix and looking for opportunities to work with us, and I guess the reason being is we have a great product and we have very vocal customers that are continuing to talk about Delphix.”

Regulatory compliance is a big draw for customers across APAC seeking to adhere to it ever more closely, not just for “checking boxes for auditors and compliance officers”, according to Gerdis, but also for establishing good practices across the board. This transparency of compliance bolsters a company’s reputation, subsequently yielding stronger customer retention as well as becoming more attractive to prospective clients.

“There’s no better advocate for your company than your existing customers, and our existing customers are continuing to renew with Delphix. They are continuing to invest and increase their footprint, and they continue to talk about the benefits that they get, not only from a regulatory compliance perspective, but also from speed to market and continuing to enhance innovation.”