Vodafone Business is forming a strategic partnership with Accenture to deliver managed security services for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and national corporations in Europe. Vodafone’s enterprise-grade cybersecurity and leading cyber talent and expertise will now be available to organizations that may lack the resources, experience, and ability to manage the ever-evolving threat landscape.

Vinod Kumar, CEO of Vodafone Business, affirmed their strategy to offer enterprise-grade cybersecurity to businesses of all sizes. “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.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in organizations increasingly conducting their business online, working to secure their supply chains. The shift has exposed the vulnerabilities of SMEs at different levels of digital readiness, who are more susceptible and less capable of dealing with cyberattacks. As a result, cybercriminals are now targeting less well-defended organizations.

Vodafone Business Future Ready Report 2020 revealed that “41% of businesses were concerned with keeping data safe online and 38% were concerned with losing important information or data.”

The severity of cyber threat is highlighted by Kelly Bissell, who leads Accenture Security globally: “The distinct nature of cybercrime makes it borderless and anonymous. Cyber-criminals 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.”

The aim of Vodafone and Accenture’s partnership is centered on granting businesses in Europe world-class security in simple, prefabricated packages that are tailored and designed to the needs of the user. Accenture and Vodafone will invest in security innovations together to help organizations resist cyberattacks as the threat landscape evolves. This includes a joint investment in an innovation lab focused on security solutions and intelligence for workplace, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), and SD-WAN environments.

Removing complexity at every stage, Vodafone and Accenture will provide the following services to European businesses:

• Cyber Assessment: Includes employee awareness, cyber resilience, and vulnerability diagnostics.
• Managed Security: Includes incident monitoring, management and response
• Professional: Includes risk assessment and testing

Vodafone Business managed security services is slated to launch later this year beginning in Italy and Spain, with the UK and Germany to follow.