Video: 10 Minute IT Jams – Who is ManageEngine?

ManageEngine is ramping up its presence in Australia and New Zealand, betting on a growing demand for flexible IT management solutions in a world where remote work is now the norm.

The company, which already counts more than 180,000 customers globally, says it has responded to the shifting landscape created by the pandemic by launching a comprehensive suite of remote-focused software—and by investing heavily in local cloud infrastructure.

Vinayak Shreda, Country Manager of Sales and Business Development for ManageEngine in Australia, emphasised the company's history and depth of offerings. "ManageEngine is the IT management division of Zoho Corp. What ManageEngine does is that we prioritise our flexible solutions that most businesses globally can work on, regardless of their size or budget," he said.

With over 90 products on offer, ManageEngine spans a swathe of IT needs: security and service desks, network and remote management software, helpdesk ticketing systems, endpoint management and security, and active directory tools. "We have a whole host of solutions available, and at the end customers today have a plethora of options available regarding how they would want to start off with using ManageEngine products," Shreda explained.

Among the company's flagship solutions, he highlighted their IT services management platform, which has been in the market for more than 17 years, as well as advanced offerings in endpoint and active directory management. "All these verticals we are very strong and we focus a lot on," he added.

But, as Shreda pointed out, the past few years have brought unprecedented changes. "The biggest announcement or the major announcement that's come out for ManageEngine is in the space of work from home. As you know, the pandemic has disrupted all our lives and most organisations today are forced to work from home," he said.

Understanding the challenges facing IT teams in a remote environment, the company launched a "very robust campaign" over the last three to four months. "We have various products assisting the IT teams to ensure that they are able to do the day-to-day work in a productive and secure manner," Shreda explained.

Included under the remote work umbrella are products for password management, secure remote access, antivirus management and endpoint control. "So the work from home campaign has been a major campaign in the last three months and it's well received globally," he said.

For the Australia and New Zealand region, this push has coincided with massive cloud adoption. "The ANZ market for us is one of the key strategic markets. We've been in the market for more than 10 years. We've got a substantial amount of customers already using ManageEngine products," Shreda said.

He credited a "phenomenal cloud adoption which is going on in the market" for driving change. "We have seen that most customers today are coming to us for a cloud solution rather than an on-premise solution," he continued.

Moving to cement its place in the region, the company recently established local data centres. "Last year, we have commissioned our own data centres for the ANZ market. We've got our data centre today available in Australia, where most of our cloud solutions are hosted," Shreda said.

This allows the company to comply with data sovereignty requirements—an issue of increasing importance for many organisations in the region. "We make it very easy for our Australian customers to come on board and start using our cloud solutions, and that is also one of the major strategic goals for ManageEngine, is to take most of our products to the cloud," he added.

The response, according to Shreda, has been swift. "Since we have a local data centre available for the ANZ market it is well received. Most of our customers are very happy to come on board, coming to know that we've got their data stored within Australia," he said. "This is really kind of giving us a lot of dividends in the last few months. We've seen a huge uptick of customers coming to the cloud."

As cloud adoption continues its rapid ascent, the company believes that expansion will only accelerate. "Moving forward, we see that the cloud adoption is only going to go more," Shreda asserted.

While its technology backbone might be global, ManageEngine has put effort into tailoring its approach to the ANZ environment. This extends to how customers can engage, either directly or through a network of local partners. "The customers today have an option of working with the partners, or they can also deal directly with us. We have a very healthy ecosystem of partners who've been working with us for many years," he said.

Recently, all partners have come under a main distributor for the Australian market, streamlining access and support. "All the partners are managed by our distributor and the customers really have a choice. If they want to work with the partners, we are more than happy to take them on that course. Also, we do have an option when some of the customers want to work directly with ManageEngine, and we do that as well," Shreda explained.

Ultimately, ManageEngine's message is about flexibility and local commitment—offering enterprises the stability, choice, and security they need in a fast-evolving industry.

"It's ultimately up to the end user or the customer to decide which course they want to take," Shreda said.