In a context where organizations seek to maximize the return on their technological investments without compromising security or regulatory compliance, ManageEngine’s value proposition is especially relevant among companies that want to successfully address their digitalization process. This is explained by Andrés Mendoza, the company’s technical director for Southern Europe and LATAM, with whom we recently spoke about the company’s strategy, as well as the challenges and opportunities of the Zoho Corporation business unit.
Mendoza has more than a decade of experience in the organization. For eight years he led the operation in Bogotá, from where they support nearly 18 Latin American countries. For two years he has been in Europe with the aim of replicating this successful model in the countries of the region. Its vision combines operational experience with a clear commitment to local adaptation: “We are a multinational, but with a local focus. We understand that each market has its own rules and needs.”
Five verticals to cover the entire IT area
ManageEngine has a portfolio of more than 60 tools, organized into five large verticals: identity management, endpoints, IT services (ITSM), observability and infrastructure, and cybersecurity. This approach allows the technological operation to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, from the end user to the core of the infrastructure.
One of the most differentiating aspects is the extension of ServiceDesk beyond the IT department. “The help desk is no longer just for technical incidents. We are taking it to areas such as human resources, legal or compliance, where traceability and reporting are equally important,” says Mendoza. In fact, ServiceDesk Plus combines IT service management (ITSM), asset management and CMDB functionalities, and is available in both SaaS and on-premises modes.
Among the improvements that ServiceDesk Plus has incorporated are a new LLM-type interface and multimodal support in Ask Zia, which allows you to search, extract and summarize articles from the knowledge base, manage tickets and offer instant responses. For its part, Workflow Assist interprets descriptive requirements and images to generate visual workflows, including automation and error correction suggestions.
Accelerated ROI vs. endless projects
In a market where many technological implementations last for months or even years, ManageEngine is committed to drastically reducing deployment times. “We encounter projects that take six months, a year or more to produce results. We seek for the client to see value in weeks or the initial months with an approach that relies on a combination of predefined good practices and the capacity for hyper-personalization to reduce the learning curve.” According to Mendoza, “these are not ‘Lego’ type solutions that must be built from scratch, but rather platforms ready to quickly adapt to the business.” In some cases, deployments can be completed in just a few weeks, even in complex environments with extensive history.
A model based on partners and proximity
One of the pillars of ManageEngine is its channel model. Approximately 90% of the business is articulated through partners, integrators and wholesalers. In the Iberian Peninsula, this work falls mainly to ALSO, formerly IREO Soluciones y Servicios, which manages a wide network of specialized resellers according to different capacities.
“The partner is the one who is really close to the client, understands their problems and can accompany them throughout the cycle,” explains Mendoza. This strategy not only allows the operation to scale, but also guarantees closer and more contextualized support. In parallel, the company reinforces its presence with local resources: teams in Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon, as well as a powerful technical hub in Bogotá with more than 50 specialists.
Control of cloud spending and data sovereignty
One of the main pain points identified by ManageEngine is the lack of control of spending in cloud environments. The ease of provisioning resources can become a double-edged sword. “With three clicks you can create 50 virtual machines, but at the end of the month the bill arrives and no one understands why it has grown so much,” warns Mendoza.
The problem, he explains, lies in the lack of visibility and governance: IT teams provision resources while finance faces unexpected costs. To address this situation, ManageEngine proposes the use of observability and consumption management solutions that allow both worlds to be aligned. “It’s not just about technology, but about shared responsibility between IT and business.”
In Europe, regulatory compliance is a key factor. ManageEngine has adapted its offering to comply with standards such as the National Security Scheme (ENS) in Spain and European directives such as NIS2. “If you are not aligned with local certifications, you simply cannot operate in certain markets,” Mendoza emphasizes. To achieve this, the company has its own data centers in Europe, specifically in Amsterdam and Dublin, which guarantees data sovereignty and compliance with protection regulations.
Responsible AI: beyond the hype
Artificial intelligence is another of the strategic axes, although with a pragmatic approach. ManageEngine, through Zoho, has developed its own language model, ZIA LLM, from Zeta Labs. However, the key is not in the technology itself, but in its application.
“We don’t want to sell AI by trend. The important thing is to define clear use cases and work with the client’s internal data,” explains Mendoza. The company also allows the integration of third-party models such as OpenAI or Gemini, but always under the control of the client. “With the Ask Zia virtual agent and the other integrated AI functionalities, IT and business service management teams will be able to use them at no additional cost in their use cases, both for employees and customers,” he points out.
Data sovereignty is once again a central element. “Many organizations do not want their sensitive information to go outside. That is why we offer the possibility of deploying models locally or in our own data centers.”
Another emerging aspect is the energy impact of technology, especially in AI projects. Mendoza recognizes that this is a growing challenge: “Each process, even generating an image in seconds, has an energy cost.”
ManageEngine focuses on operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and responsible adoption of emerging technologies
That is why ManageEngine is working to optimize the use of resources, including the efficient use of GPUs in collaboration with NVIDIA and the management of its own data centers. Sustainability thus becomes another component of the value proposition.
Looking to the future, the company plans to strengthen its network of partners in regions outside of large cities, such as Galicia, Seville or Córdoba, with the aim of getting even closer to the end customer. “Proximity continues to be key. We want to be where our customers are,” concludes Mendoza.
In short, ManageEngine positions itself as an actor that combines global reach with local execution, focusing on operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and responsible adoption of emerging technologies. An approach that, in the words of its technical director, seeks to “solve real problems with practical solutions”, beyond the trends of the moment.
