{"id":6312,"date":"2018-02-01T09:30:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T14:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/fireeye-on-the-prize-helping-other-firms-navigate-digital-transformation-securely\/"},"modified":"2018-02-01T09:30:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T14:30:05","slug":"fireeye-on-the-prize-helping-other-firms-navigate-digital-transformation-securely","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/fireeye-on-the-prize-helping-other-firms-navigate-digital-transformation-securely\/","title":{"rendered":"Fireeye on the prize: helping other firms navigate digital transformation securely"},"content":{"rendered":"
The premise of our course is that “the digital revolution is rapidly transforming the fundamental nature of many companies in a wide range of industries” — this premise necessitates technological innovation to stay competitive relative to traditional and upstart peers, but that innovation comes with a particular risk which executives are not used to managing: the threat of cyber\/ information security breaches and attacks. As a broad range of firms seek to digitize, and in the process of doing so expose themselves to new threats (e.g., the annual cost of data breaches is expected to grow to nearly $1T in 2018), cybersecurity firms like Fireeye have become winners (e.g., as annual cybersecurity spending approaches $100B). High profile, poorly managed breaches such as the recent Equifax breach (see effect on share price below) have only underlined the need for security to other companies, as value can be quickly destroyed when cyber prevention and response are mismanaged. Since most firms lack these capabilities in house, they are turning to companies like Fireeye to provide them.<\/p>\n
Fireye creates value in several ways:<\/p>\n The product and solution spaces are fairly crowded with other firms — where Fireeye really sets itself apart is in the services space, which conveniently is likely one of the higher margin areas of the business. Fireeye’s acquisition of Mandiant Consulting in 2013 was a coup from both a marketing perspective and from a fundamental business valuation perspective. Mandiant threw itself onto the map by providing the first detailed private sector attribution of an advanced persistent threat (APT) or state-backed threat, pointing the finger at China in an intelligence report with exceptional forensics (see youtube on APT1: China PLA threat detection below). Fireeye benefitted from the initial halo generated by Mandiant for providing this public benefit analysis, and continues to benefit from Mandiant-published thought pieces as they attract customers to the firm who then buy Fireeye’s products, services, and solutions. Fireeye’s services division (of which Mandiant is an integral part) has also become one of the first calls for governments (e.g., OPM) and firms in the wake of serious cybersecurity incidents to help with threat analysis and mitigation; willingness to pay in the midst of these incidents is high — CEOs now undestand that their own jobs are on the line should an incident be poorly managed — and Fireeye is able to (a) drive up WTP higher than its peers, and (b) presumably capture more WTP than peers due to its track record and thought leadership (i.e., what it calls an intelligence-led approach).<\/p>\n
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