“The cybersecurity investments have not been on par”: Avanade APAC president on the region’s cyber stance

Bhavya Kapoor believes APAC lacks cybersecurity investment despite a growth in tech investment.

As more organisations invest into Agentic AI and cloud platform the risk of cyber attacks increases, and Avanade APAC president Bhavya Kapoor says the region has not invested enough in cybersecurity.

Speaking to CRN Australia exclusively, Bhavya Kapoor said as the investment into technology grows, the threat surface increases significantly.

“I don't think APAC has invested significantly into cyber security,” he said.

“We've made investments, and depending on what you consider APAC. But if you go to less developed markets like Indonesia, which are populous, the cyber security investments have not been on par.”

Looking specifically at Australia, Kapoor said it is better than some of the emerging markets but still needs work.

“But if you look at all the research that has been published, it is not where it needs to be,” he explained.

“It's front and centre, when I go and meet CEOs, CIOs and even CFOs. Whenever I'm here cybersecurity - besides generative AI – it is a topic that we talk about.”

With the growing interest and investment in generative AI, Kapoor said it is a massive value adder to the security defence posture. Avanade uses Copilot for security from Microsoft, he said they are one of the early adopters.

“We are like the customer zero, and we have it in our own SOC and automation of threat intelligence, suggesting next best actions and at times doing auto remediation,” he said.

"You don't need to have eyeball monitoring and all of that, It's a reality. It's here and now, now. It's obviously improving with more use cases, with more knowledge that it picks up. I see that as a major conversation point.”

Tariff impact on tech

With the Trump tariffs announced over a month ago, it has brought unpredictability to the market, but Kapoor said these tariffs are working in the firm’s favour.

"We are seeing clients being extremely cautious, it's across industries in making capital expenditure. They are reevaluating for in year impact, more than anything,” he said.

“The cost of capital has not come down, it has come down over the last three years or two years, but it hasn't come down meaningfully.”

Kapoor said they don’t see a slowdown on technology spend.

“Everyone is looking for in year results more than what they were on technology investments, which is perfect for us,” he explained.

“We don't see technology spend slowing, we just see from our perspective, technology spend being vectored into more meaningful short term results and also looking at operational simplicity.”

People-centric approach

Kapoor firmly believes that happier employees create happier customers. Kapoor explained the way Avanade ensures its employees are being looked after.

"It is this psychological safety that we provide to our employees. It is a sense of belonging, it is career development opportunities. We spend a lot of time, effort and money in internal programs as well as external programs that our employees can subscribe to develop their career,” he said.

It is not just technical skills that Avanade train but also leadership training courses.

“We've got partnerships with BetterUp and some of those organisations where we hone leadership skills,” he said.

“That goes beyond salary, beyond pay and all of that, which creates a happier workplace, because our employees feel they are cared for and we help them being employable and more employable than they were when they joined us.”

Kapoor said their purpose as a firm is to make genuine human impact.

“A lot of people talk about it. every other firm has some sort of vision statement, but I've actually seen it in action,” he said.

One of the examples Kapoor uses is the work Avanade does for their clients and communities. In Singapore, the company has collaborated with the Autism Resource Centre to hire people on the autism spectrum.

“We train [these people], we employ them and deploy them onto projects. So much so that the Prime Minister of Singapore took note of it, recognised us at an event and encouraged us to take lead for others to follow,” he said.

“Usually what was happening is people with autism would go into restaurants, into those jobs, but not technology jobs. We've got that trend going, which has helped, not just us and not just people, but Singapore at large,” he ended.