A professional journey that began in 1992 that shone over the decades achieving several milestones; serving every business with one essential aspect: trust, Victor Cheah has made his mark on the business world. Today as the CEO of Vigilant Asia, Victor is keen on delivering world-class security services tailored to protect your organization against the threats of today and tomorrow.
Insights Success caught up with Victor to find the most influential business leaders in the cybersecurity niche. We interviewed him to know about his remarkable journey that has now curved towards securing people’s future from cyber threats.
Unveil his three decades climb up the ladder!
Oncoming Strides
Victor dabbled in several industries going through various challenges to found Efficient E- Solutions, which initially was a mail insertion business. However, when the opportunity struck during the Asian financial crisis, the company tapped into document management. After the financial crisis, the regulators in Malaysia started to allow financial institutions to outsource their non-core activities, non-decision-making activities, managing sensitive documents (printing), which gave Victor a leading start. He states, “The sensitivity part about it is that the data confidentiality becomes paramount in all things. So, the bank has to trust you, right, for them to pass on – while it’s a non-decision-making, but I think it was a critical enough mission within their system that they needed to make sure that the partner they choose.”
Victor’s path to success spanned over the next 20 years, expanding one customer at a time until 2016, when he decided to sell the business that grew, covering 80% of the market share in the financial services sector in Malaysia.
The Next Chapter
Victor believes that success comes to the people committed to the cause. This value was carried with his team, supporting Victor in his cybersecurity drive with Vigilant Asia. He maintains the consistency and integrity with everything that Vigilant Asia offers, resembling its slogan “Name you can trust,” becoming one of the critical success factors for its success. Vigilant Asia is committed to its client 24/7/365, operating at the highest level keeping its team on their toenails to deliver streamlined solutions.
Victor’s farsighted vision of a digital world and its potential problem and solution birthed Vigilant Asia. When the pandemic hit the world, it accelerated the demise of paperless, giving rise to remote work culture and several security threats. Vigilant Asia could have tapped into an array of stuff. However, the technology changes rapidly; thus, with his team, decided their next step to prevent these threats with innovative solutions that identified and resonated with the company’s DNA of trust.
Victor notes, “We’re not here for the overnight success; we’re here for the long haul.” He wants to build a strong practice, simultaneously making a name for Vigilant Asia. He found that 95% of the market talking about digital transformation lacked one crucial ingredient; they did not understand security enough. He intends to be a cybersecurity partner inside a large organization. They offer visibility compared to substantial vendors, service providers,
or the MDR space, having expensive setups lacking visibility towards micro-enterprises requiring resilience. Victor aims to achieve this goal, ensuring to educate the space enough to move forward to creating service packages that are best at a reasonable price.
Making the Mark
Despite being a relatively young company in the space of cybersecurity as compared to other peers in the niche, Vigilant Asia has imprinted its name and volume by building the stack around best practices, reaching out to global certification bodies like CREST, going beyond the standard requirements of traditional cybersecurity practitioners. Since its inception, the Vigilant Asia team realized that much bigger branded CIOs research people’s reports. So, it started engaging with Gartner, receiving feedback from the analysts following the global guidelines, focusing on the deals creating more vital branding.
Vigilant Asia has associated with Microsoft in Malaysia as managed partners, constantly improving to deliver unique solutions focused on security stack., increasing its capability to get essential deals with Microsoft. Additionally, Vigilant Asia is partnering with large organizations and has onboarded two telcos in Malaysia to push its mobile-security solution.
He notes, “We believe in the Partner Channel’s relationship because a lot of these partners, they have their relationship with their customers, in which we may need time to build. I think working through partners is always going to be important your net can be cast a lot wider.”
Planning Ahead
Vigilant Asia is the only company in Malaysia that provides mobile threat defense support, covering the whole spectrum of the digital journey, moving from blue teaming to red teaming solutions as a service. It strives to be a top service provider worldwide, aspiring to be on the upward trajectory keeping up with the latest trends and expanding its brick-and-mortar as a homegrown cybersecurity company that will reach out beyond the shores.
Focused Approach
Victor advises aspiring entrepreneurs to stay focused on the objective. He says, “It’s not only in cybersecurity but also across any other industry. People try to be focusing on too many things. But every time we do that, we need to remember to pull ourselves back to the center. It’s always easier to see things from the center than to be too left or right. It’s always good from the center.”
Victor continues, “You get a better overall view of where you are today. And staying focused is one of those key aspects of success for any business. It’s evident in the space in the West, as far as cybersecurity companies are concerned, all the recent big guys who have gone listing, they have stayed focused on one area. Obviously, no one cybersecurity company in the world can tell you they have solutions for every problem.”
“That’s where we come in and say, No, you don’t need to have the product, you can buy the services, and someone like us will be able to put it together and provide you with the whole nine yards,” concludes Victor.
