With an estimated growth in its turnover of around 5% at the end of 2022, Sarenet is optimistic in terms of its own and third-party forecasts for 2023. As Jon Arberas, Sarenet’s CEO, stated in a meeting with the specialized media “in principle and given the digitization needs that organizations have, it is foreseeable that we will continue to grow at the same rate and so will the ICT sector”. From the company they consider that the evolution of the invasion in Ukraine can slow down this growth, but the rest of the economic factors should not influence, since the digitization processes are a priority at present. Of course to the company chaired by Roberto Beitia, the numbers seem to prove him right. And it is that, the firm is going to achieve a turnover of 23.5 million euros, of which approximately 47% comes from outside the Basque Country. The forecasts are that the figures are maintained and increase, above all, due to the boom that cybersecurity is having among companies. “The unstoppable increase in cyberattacks together with the growing need for connectivity and digitization in the business world make SMEs especially vulnerable, as they do not have the necessary resources to defend themselves,” Beitia said.

Sarenet will achieve a turnover of 23.5 million euros, of which approximately 47% comes from outside the Basque Country

In this context, the company has launched two important initiatives: the creation of the Sarenet Foundation and the Security Operation Center (SOC). The Foundation has 13 professionals -which will be 16 at the end of the year- dedicated exclusively to the development of R+D+i projects, especially in the automation of processes with artificial intelligence (AI). Already in this first year, it has involved an investment of more than one million euros and will increase by 10% by 2023. The SOC, for its part, is integrated into the Cybersecurity and Customer Engineering (CIC) department, which offers itself as a transversal service to all the operator’s solutions: voice, data and hosting services. It consists of the monitoring and surveillance by certified personnel of the different assets and infrastructure of clients, who do not have specialized resources or material or human means to protect themselves, and alert to incidents and act proactively if necessary, being able to even get to manage some assets involved. All this with the corresponding compliance with different standards such as the National Security Scheme and the ISO 27001 standard. In addition to highly sophisticated solutions for companies that have the necessary cybersecurity resources, Sarenet also offers other tools for smaller companies that cannot invest in security in order to defend against possible attacks. As a consequence of this growing demand to avoid risks, the company has recently launched the Fibra Segura+ service, a complete fiber optic solution to protect corporate networks with symmetrical high-capacity fiber, 4G backup and cloud firewalls. Changes in the forms of attack and from different fronts force us to permanently modify cybersecurity models and strategies to be protected”, acknowledges Jon Arberas, CEO of Sarenet. To achieve the best cyber defense, the company relies on top-level manufacturers in the sector, both in network segmentation and access control, the application of AI in network flow control or solutions advanced endpoints. “We like to feel like we’re part of our clients’ IT staff so they can focus on their business,” concludes Arberas.

Growth in all areas

Jon Arberas, CEO of Sarenet, and Roberto Beitia, President of Sarenet. Billing for projects related to the CIC area, for its part, will be around 1.3 million euros, of which 45% comes from projects with industrial clients and 20% of the retail world. For Roberto Beitia, president of Sarenet, “the results we expect to obtain this year are more than acceptable, especially taking into account the current situation, immersed in great uncertainty. Our idea is to grow at the same rate next year, reinforcing our commitment to providing quality services, especially in the world of SMEs. We want to be your trusted strategic partner in everything that has to do with your activity on the Internet”. It is also worth noting the good functioning of indirect sales, which currently has a large network of partners including wholesalers, integrators and distributors. distributed throughout the national geography and that generate about 38% of the total volume of business. According to Jon Arberas, “we are very satisfied with the activity and business generated by our partners and our intention is to continue expanding the channel, approaching the world of developers familiar with Big Data and industrial IoT projects that use technologies such as kubernetes and containers. “At the same time, the company has experienced notable growth in human resources, going from 103 employees in 2021 to 113 at the end of this year. A large part of this increase in the workforce has been aimed at strengthening the CIC department, with technical profiles that are currently in high demand and that require continuous recycling. On the other hand, a Business Development Director has been incorporated to promote the new business plans, as well as a PhD in mathematics from the Sarenet Foundation to promote the use of AI through the development of algorithms that improve analysis tools. of traffic to detect any anomaly. With more than 25 years of experience in providing IT services to companies, Sarenet has the widest range of solutions to comprehensively manage all the IT service needs of any organization.