Ross Wilkers
The U.S.-based subsidiary of Thales Group will target its growth strategy for 2016 on technologies such as artificial intelligence and analytics tools with the view that decision-making processes at enterprises are increasingly “going digital,” Thales USA‘s chief executive said in a media briefing Monday.
Alan Pellegrini told reporters at Thales USA’s headquarters in Arlington, Va. that the digital shift aims to pivot slightly away from a reliance on humans and how they interpret information to a new method where organizations take real-time data and work to correlate that with static sources.
Partnerships with companies based in the Silicon Valley region are one avenue Thales USA has identified as a potential means for growth in the digital and security spaces and the company made one move last year on that strategy through the $400 million purchase of data security and software protection firm Vormetric in a deal set to close in the first quarter of this year.
The purchase of Vormetric is also a component of Thales USA’s strategy in the domestic security market for 2016 with access to new types data and a dynamic cyber environment among the drivers there coupled with the subsidiary’s push to grow its footprint in Silicon Valley, Pellegrini said.
“Vormetic provides protection for what we call ‘data at rest’ that resides in devices, applications, databases or in the cloud that is there in place and not moving over networks,” he said.
“We now have a complete trust management cyber company and investing significantly in our cyber capability in the U.S.
Vormetric will combine with Thales’ cybersecurity business — Thales e-Security — upon the deal’s closure and together contribute close to $175 million in revenue during 2016, Pellegrini said.
Thales USA recorded $2.1 billion in overall revenue during 2015 to register 11.8-percent growth from the prior year period and represented close to 10 percent of the Group’s overall sales last year.
Of that $2.1 billion figure, Thales USA generated nearly 77 percent of sales in the aerospace market with defense and security at 20 percent and transportation contributed the remaining 3 percent.
