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Latin America move ‘a natural choice’ for Assured Data Protection
Following the announcement of a joint venture with Rubrik to cover the Latin America region, Assured Data Protection’s co-founder shares details of the motivation behind the decision
UK-based managed service providers (MSPs) often expand internationally to mainland Europe, Australia or the US, but it is not so common to target Latin America (LatAm).
Yet in August 2024, Assured Data Protection – one of Rubrik’s MSPs – revealed it was working with the vendor to support customers in Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Chile and Colombia.
As part of the joint venture with Rubrik, a centre of excellence is being established by ADP in Costa Rica to provide the 24/7 support required across the LatAm countries.
Rob Mackle, director and co-founder of Assured Data Protection, has outlined the rationale behind the moves into Latin America and the benefits the firm is expecting to unlock from the decision.
Why South America?
Rob Mackle: As a global business, we have large presence in North America, which totals around 60% of our revenue. Natural expansion in the Americas is into Canada and Latin America. Canada was the easiest to implement due to our strong routes to market via our channel eco system, and we now have datacentre presence in region.
Latin America has always been an area we wanted to expand into, but it brings many challenges due to size, culture, language and economical barriers. We firmly believe Latin America is easier to approach with a consumption-based model rather than traditional resell. Our unique and powerful relationship with Rubrik is why we can do such innovative ventures, and we agreed very quickly to approach LatAm as a joint venture.
What are the benefits for the business from international expansion?
Mackle: Regardless of location, vertical or size, all businesses require the services we provide. For Assured, it isn’t that we need to create more service lines, it’s more that we need to adapt our solutions to meet the market nuisances. International expansion gives Assured additional datacentres and greater global reach, bringing invaluable skills which large enterprises demand.
Do you expect lessons learnt will filter back and make the UK an improved operation – different ways of doing things, etc?
Mackle: This is a global business, collaboration happens across all operations, which makes Assured’s services so applicable and readily available.
How did this move come about?
Mackle: Assured and Rubrik continuously look for ways to bring our high value services to the market. Conversations with Ghazal Asif [vice-president of global channels and alliances at Rubrik] and Brian McCarthy [Rubrik’s chief revenue officer] developed, and a plan was hatched to address the LatAm opportunity
What does it involve in practical terms – hiring local talent and an office etc?
Mackle: Assured have hired a native-speaking team, with vast experience in data and cyber security. In addition, the expansion of our support team now supports Spanish language.
Any other plans like this in the pipeline?
Mackle: Asia-Pacific remains a future target. Currently, we are exploring further expansion in Continental Europe and Africa. We now have personnel in the Middle East covering the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates]. Essentially, in geographical locations where we can really help the adoption of Rubrik, we aim to be there delivering Rubrik as a service.
