They plan to help businesses of all sizes detect, respond and recover from cyberattacks.
The two will offer managed security services – through a range of packages – to small to medium enterprises (SME) and national corporate customers in Europe.
Accenture and Vodafone Business also intend to invest in evolving security solutions to defend against new threats.
Key step forward
In a statement, Vodafone said, “The agreement is a key step forward in Vodafone Business’ strategy to offer enterprise-grade cybersecurity to businesses of all sizes.”
It pointed out that cybersecurity has never been so important to businesses as more organisations are running their businesses online because of the pandemic.
It added the shift has highlighted how vulnerable some smaller companies are to cyberattacks.
Larger enterprises are working to improve their cybersecurity too, hence cybercriminals search for less well defended organisations.
Committed to better support
Vinod Kumar, CEO Vodafone Business said, “We are committed to better support small and medium enterprises and national corporate sized businesses as they transform and ‘future ready’ their organisation.
“Working with Accenture, we will leverage our combined capabilities and global experience to deliver modular security solutions, offering access to technologies that until now were only available to companies with large IT budgets. Today’s news builds upon the Vodafone V-Hub service recently announced. “
According to the Vodafone Business Future Ready Report 2020, “Forty-one percent of businesses were concerned with keeping data safe online and 38% were concerned with losing important information or data.”
Range of services
The new services include:
• Cyber assessment services
• Managed security services from monitoring to incident management and response that will draw on Accenture’s recent acquisition of Symantec’s Cyber Security Services unit
• Professional services focused on risk assessment, testing and testing employees’ awareness of phishing attacks.
• Joint investment in an innovation lab focused on security solutions and intelligence for workplace, cloud, IoT and SD-WAN environments
• “A simple and seamless experience: from onboarding to delivery and service management; streamlining the time it takes to deploy and protect a business.
Distinct nature
“The distinct nature of cybercrime makes it borderless and anonymous. Cybercriminals can come from anywhere and as they take advantage of the COVID-19 situation, they pose a significant threat to businesses of all sizes with costly consequences,” said Kelly Bissell, who leads Accenture Security globally.
“This strategic relationship brings together two leading global players and will give Vodafone customers access to leading cybersecurity talent and industry expertise globally.”
Vodafone Business managed security services will launch later this year to SME and national corporate sized businesses, initially in Italy and Spain with the UK and Germany to follow.
These new services will align with the company’s core mobile, fixed, IoT and cloud portfolio solutions. In addition, they complement and build upon Vodafone’s existing cyber-as-a-service offerings for businesses of all sizes.