COVER STORY offered point tools. But customers want outcomes, not just operations.”
For example, patch management isn’ t about hitting 90 % device coverage: it’ s about achieving zero security incidents. That shift, from output to outcome, is what drives the unified approach.
“ We have over 60 tightly integrated products,” he added.“ Customers can start with a few and expand. Each module works in sync, aware of context, role and risk posture. That’ s the power of platform design.”
The Zoho-owned IT management company is now not only enabling enterprises to simplify complexity but also enabling Managed Service Providers( MSPs) to scale securely through their flagship platform, MSP Central. Over the past two decades in IT operations and security, ManageEngine has steadily scaled its platform to serve over 10,000 customers in the MENA region alone.
“ That’ s the crux of what we do. No magic button makes complexity disappear. Infrastructure is inherently complex. We at Zoho and ManageEngine run own data centres globally and serve over 125 million users. Complexity is part of our daily reality,” said Ganesan.
ManageEngine’ s approach is based on fundamentals, like visibility, as Ganesan explained:“ You cannot manage what you cannot know. With remote work, hybrid environments and Edge devices, the traditional concept of a perimeter is no longer relevant. Step one is helping organisations identify their assets.”
The next step is to define and enforce policy. Once visibility is established, you need clear rules on who has access to what and automation to enforce those consistently. The third step is measurement and control. Are things running optimally? Are anomalies flagged in real-time? Once these are answered, the complexity can be managed.“ It doesn’ t vanish, it simply becomes controllable and structured,” explained Ganesan.
It now sits at the intersection of enterprise-grade infrastructure and AI-enabled transformation. But it’ s not just enterprises that are benefitting from this evolution.
MSP Central: Platform thinking for providers
In June 2025, ManageEngine launched MSP Central, a dedicated platform designed for MSPs navigating the same pressures: fragmented tools, rising client expectations and the growing complexity of remote, hybrid and AI-powered IT ecosystems.
The organisation discovered that technicians were switching between multiple consoles to resolve a single client incident. There was a need for a single platform that brought together everything without locking into a rigid stack.
MSP Central reflects the same principles that have guided ManageEngine’ s success with enterprise IT: modularity, visibility, role-based control and responsible automation. Whether through AI-driven ticket triage, fine-grained multi-tenancy, or advanced threat detection, the platform allows MSPs to consolidate their operations while staying flexible enough to evolve.
And that’ s the deeper story here: at a time when most vendors are racing to add AI into their stacks, ManageEngine is re-architecting how AI fits into realworld enterprise and MSP operations safely, natively and at scale.
This isn’ t just product innovation, it’ s platform recalibration for an AI era that demands more than excitement; it demands answers.
AI at the core, not just plugged in
However, with the growing number of tools and integrations, the question of digital control becomes critical. Control, Ganesan explained, is contextual. If a device enters the network with malware, it could slowly exfiltrate data through cloud uploads, emails or even WhatsApp. Each action in isolation may seem harmless, but together, they constitute a breach.
The company’ s proprietary AI engine, Zia, exemplifies this shift. Rather than bolting on third-party LLMs, Zia is designed with enterprise realities in mind: contextaware logic, privacy-first architecture and operational trust. It powers everything from automated ticket triage to privilege access verification and behavioural anomaly detection. Zia observes, learns and reacts within clearly defined governance frameworks.
“ Zia isn’ t a chatbot, it’ s a systems co-pilot,” said Ganesan.“ It works within defined roles and rules. That’ s how we make AI useful without making it risky.”
One of Zia’ s strongest capabilities lies in User and Entity Behaviour Analytics( UEBA). When a compromised device exfiltrates data slowly via emails, cloud uploads, or even personal messaging apps, Zia connects the dots by correlating actions across browser logs, file servers and user access patterns.
These subtle chains of activity, when seen in isolation, may seem harmless. But viewed together, they reveal sophisticated breaches.
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