In a conversation with Techitup ME Rajesh Ganesan, CEO at ManageEngine discusses changing enterprise priorities, the role of partners, and why audit-ready IT is now a business necessity
What is the significance of ManageEngine Day and Partner Day 2026?
ManageEngine was started with a clear dream, to build a global software product company from India. For nearly three decades, we focused deeply on product development and R&D rather than marketing. But over time, we realized that telling our story is equally important.
Events like ManageEngine Day are about giving media and partners a first-hand experience of who we are as a company — how we work, how our people operate, how we engage with partners, and the values we live by. It would be easy to meet in a hotel and present slides, but that doesn’t convey the reality of our culture.
We want you to experience ManageEngine and Zoho as humane organizations and take that story forward if you find it authentic.
A big part of that story is also about talent. In India, we often talk about “topsoil erosion” — losing our best talent to migration. Our belief is to take opportunity to where the talent is. From small towns like Tenkasi, Kottarakkara, and Pattukkottai, our teams are building advanced products in AI, robotics, cybersecurity, and IT management. This model has worked for us, and we want the world to know this is a viable way to build a global product company.
You mentioned having over 300 partners but also a strong direct business model. How important is the channel partner ecosystem for ManageEngine?
Channel is extremely important to our strategy, especially in regions like the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for example, ManageEngine is almost 100% channel-driven
We have a structured channel program with onboarding, quarterly training, certifications, tiered partnerships, and marketing development funds. We share leads, conduct joint customer visits, run proof-of-concepts together, and do co-marketing initiatives.
Partners earn margins on licenses, but more importantly, they build revenue streams through implementation, customization, training, and support services around our products. Many of our partners have built strong businesses around ManageEngine because enterprise IT management is not just about selling software — it’s about deploying and operating it effectively.
Enterprises today are balancing hybrid work, cloud adoption, security pressures, and AI. How have customer priorities shifted in recent years?
Hybrid work is no longer a special topic — it’s now the norm. The real priorities today fall into four areas.
First is intelligent workflow automation in this hybrid environment. Businesses are essentially workflows, and organizations want smarter ways to automate, monitor, and optimize them.
Second is cybersecurity. The scale and complexity of attack vectors today are enormous, and many organizations worry about threats they don’t even fully understand.
Third is AI. Many enterprises are unsure how fast to move, whether to adopt immediately or proceed cautiously with guardrails and visibility.
Fourth is compliance. Regulatory requirements across regions like the EU, India, UAE, and Saudi Arabia are becoming stricter. Surprise audits are real, and organizations must be ready to produce evidence instantly, not reports later.
Customers expect tools that give them this visibility, the ability to show who accessed what, when, and how, with a clean audit trail. That’s where ManageEngine’s focus is increasingly moving.
Which regions have surprised you in terms of growth?
The Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, has seen massive growth in the last three years, largely driven by policy changes and Vision 2030. The pace of digital transformation there has been remarkable.
Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have also surprised us. Similar to how India leapfrogged directly into mobile and cloud adoption, these regions are skipping legacy stages and moving straight into modern IT and cloud infrastructure.
Latin America is another region we had bet on early, and it is paying off now.
Beyond regions, have there been any surprising shifts in product demand?
Yes — cybersecurity and compliance.
ManageEngine started as a network monitoring company, then grew into IT service management. Today, we are increasingly becoming a cybersecurity and compliance-focused company because that’s what customers urgently need.
We’ve seen situations where government auditors show up at data centers unannounced and demand evidence immediately — not reports, but proof. They ask questions like: show me who had access to what systems last week, show me a visual map of access trails, prove that no unauthorized access happened when someone was away.
Organizations need systems that can answer these questions instantly. In the future, this will even evolve into AI-driven audit assistance, where systems can respond to auditors in real time with evidence and context.
This capability is becoming critical for businesses worldwide, especially as legal and regulatory scrutiny increases.
