The mass adoption of cloud-based services is driving growth in the market for system management services, especially those that offer protection for disaster backup and recovery. In 2016, the global disaster recovery as a service market was valued at $1.7 billion, a figure expected to reach $38.91 billion by 2025. While major cloud partner infrastructure providers like VMware, Microsoft Azure, IBM  and Amazon Web Services are incorporating recovery services into their own trusted platforms, individual backup recovery providers are expanding their reach to directly address the needs of businesses working to protect data and comply with regulations.

“Veeam has been thought of as more of a small-to-medium-sized [provider]. … We have a much broader portfolio than we had a few years ago, and … we’re building on our reputation in backup and replication. We want to take customers to where we know the puck is going,” said Kate Hutchison (pictured), chief marketing officer of Veeam Software Inc.

With over 20 years of CMO experience at some of the most successful enterprise software support companies in the world, Hutchison is now leading branding efforts at Veeam to help the company expand into the enterprise market.

Hutchison recently spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the VeeamOn event in Chicago. (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Kate Hutchison in our Women in Tech feature.

Growing to fit enterprise needs

Veeam aims to address cloud needs at businesses of all sizes, and the expansion from its traditional SMB customer base to that of larger organizations has required a refreshed strategy from Hutchison as its new CMO. “There’s some things that an enterprise customer is going to look for that an SMB may not. Enterprises want to be assured that the company they’re doing business with has long-term viability,” Hutchison said.

The pivot to a clientele with larger-scale needs has shifted Veeam’s product offering to that of a more consolidated, behavior-based data management system, building in greater automation for more immediate responses across the data center. “We hear over and over, ‘I don’t know where all my data is.’ They need to have a platform that can give them … that aggregated view … to move workloads into places where it makes more sense to have them,” Hutchison said.

In addition to helping customers take control of their data and leverage it more successfully toward application development, Veeam aims to simplify the process and reduce the cost of data management altogether by providing streamlined integration tools. “Customers have a lot of technology already in their environments. They want to make sure that … it’ll integrate into [their] existing environment so [they] don’t have to do a complete rip and replace. That’s a very expensive proposition,” Hutchison said.

Building a powerhouse brand

The goals of Veeam’s transformational efforts is to be the most complete platform for intelligent data management, according to Hutchison. “We’re known for one thing in the industry as it relates to our product — it just works,” she said.

Even with its successful product and solid reputation, Veeam stands to benefit significantly from Hutchison’s impressive resume. Formerly CMO at VMware, Polycom, Riverbend, and a consultant for even more tech leaders, the tech marketing veteran has a reputation for rapidly implementing growth strategies and developing new markets. For Hutchison, the draw to Veeam was in its targeted offering and powerhouse brand potential.

“I just love helping a company who is known for one thing — been very successful for that — be known for something that’s even broader and more strategic. That’s why I wanted to join the company,” she said.

Hutchison’s game plan for taking Veeam to the next level involves leveraging word-of-mouth promotion through improved customer satisfaction. “When it comes to building a powerhouse brand, enterprises really rely on customers … to get the word out. … When customers go on record to talk about it, there really is no better marketing that you can do,” she said.

‘A healthy balance of staying innovative and paranoid’

While Veeam is putting much of its growth efforts toward enterprise expansion, the company is also addressing the changing needs of customers scaling through digital transformation. The European Union’s General Protection Data Regulations have increased the overall market focus on security needs and given Veeam the opportunity to seek greater business potential in the cloud.

“We have to really look at some of the adjacent markets for additional capabilities to put into our platform to ensure that we remain ahead of the competition as it relates to intelligent data management,” Hutchison said.

The company is currently looking at moving into the cloud infrastructure as a service market, offering a more complete service for customers. “We’re … making those investments so that an enterprise customer feels confident betting their business on us. We have that scalability … and we are increasingly helping our folks on the front lines become trusted advisers to our customers,” Hutchison said.

The strategy appears to be paying off. Veeam saw 48 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 and currently projects a growth rate of 36 percent year over year. Despite the competition posed by legacy companies expanding data offerings in the space, Hutchison expects Veeam’s rise to continue.

“It’s a healthy balance of staying innovative and paranoid. … Customers want the solution that Veeam offers, and they want to be able to migrate off of some of the legacy systems that are out there,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VeeamOn event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn 2018. Neither Veeam Software Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE