Companies attaching the term “cybersecurity” to their activity are legion, but few are those that have become essential. Qualys is one of them. We are very far from the gigantism of the behemoths of Silicon Valley, but this medium-sized company, which excels in its trade, deserves some attention.
If only for low cockardia motives. Qualys was indeed founded in France in 1999, by Gilles Samoun and Philippe Langlois, and brought to maturity by Philippe Courtot, who took charge in 2001. That said, the company very quickly turned to California to take flight and shine in the technological sky, at a time when the stars were rather shooting. Courtot and his friends have captured the potential of cloud computing, more commonly known as “cloud”. Moreover, Qualys is often described as one of the pioneering companies in security in SaaS mode (“software as a service”).
Nearly half of America’s 500 largest corporations are now its customers. The group’s offer should be seen as a kind of umbrella that secures an organization’s cloud infrastructure, by centralizing various cybersecurity solutions. The main product, the Qualys Cloud platform, is based on sensors that exercise continuous monitoring of security systems. It is a tool for aggregating and centralizing third-party solutions. This model bears most of the burden of R
We are dealing here with an economic model that works well, is very profitable and enjoys natural growth. We are quite far from the supercharged but unstable performances of certain younger actors who have been chasing their profitability for years. Moreover, the turnover of the company remains modest: if it has quintupled in ten years, it has only gone from 76 to 411 million dollars. The goal of Qualys is to offer the customer an all-in-one solution that is easy to install and control in the jungle of cybersecurity offers. And the company has been able to respond perfectly to demand with a product that allows it to post margins well above those of its peers (47% for the Ebitda margin against only 24% for the median of the sector).
Commercially, Qualys benefits from the premium of the actor in place: the developers of cybersecurity solutions must be integrated into the cloud solution of the group if they want to break into a client. Moreover, 41% of Qualys’ sales are indirect, that is to say made by the various cybersecurity solution providers. Major integrators and consulting firms appreciate the possibility of installing a turnkey solution for their customers, and cloud giants are sensitive to the flexibility of a platform that centralizes all solutions, limits compatibility problems and allows reassure customers.
This is why Qualys has come to an almost inescapable position. The company is at a crossroads with a strategic positioning with high added value at low cost. With this “control tower” solution, it allows its customers to control and monitor all assets connected to a network.
A few words about the sector. It goes without saying that cybersecurity is on the rise. Gone are the days of sizeable organizations discretionary where they chose to place the IT security cursor. From now on, it is necessary to be protected on the basis of increasingly demanding standards. With its prudent and informed management and its well-calibrated tools, Qualys should continue to find in this underlying trend a source of profitable growth.
