Symantec’s Interim CEO Emphasizes Channel Improvement

Symantec has a new interim CEO and he’s focused on improving channel operations in light of the company’s disappointing earnings for the fourth quarter of its 2019 fiscal year.

Richard Hill, a Symantec board member since January, was named interim CEO after Greg Clark abruptly left his position as president and CEO last week.

Fourth-quarter sales totaled $1.19 billion, lower than analyst estimates of $1.21 billion. Enterprise security was down 24 percent in terms of billings.

During the fourth-quarter earnings conference call, Hill said his first priority is to increase revenue with a “stretch goal” of 5 percent.

Symantec’s Richard Hill

“This will be accomplished through demand generation to fill the pipeline,” he said. “Also through the combination of improved processes and communication, we’re going to increase the rate at which we close business and simultaneously lower costs by shifting more costs to variable structure in the channel.”

To address the decline in enterprise security, Symantec has to “expand how quickly we get these products through a wider cross-section of business opportunities,” he said.

“I think that’s extremely important,” Hill said. “So I can’t say enough about how our channel is working has to be improved. We’ve got to accelerate what we get across the entire channel, whether it’s targeted at small business, medium business or the high-end enterprise business itself.”

The “effective plans in place today are going to take us there,” he said. Symantec’s data loss prevention (DLP) is going to “drive us the quickest, the fastest,” he said.

In addition, Symantec hasn’t marketed the importance of its email offering to the enterprise well enough, Hill said.

“When you think of the amount of malware and everything else that comes through, phishing, spear phishing, whatever, coming through email … that’s a huge opportunity,” he said.