About us

A human-scale company that makes security easier to manage and technology kinder to the people who use it.

Our story

Apalala was founded in 2010 by Emmanuel Nicaise. From the start the idea was simple: bring together the technical side of security, the human side of it, and genuine care for the people on the other end of the screen, and keep them under one roof instead of three suppliers.

More than fifteen years on, that still shapes how we work: hands-on, pragmatic, and allergic to security that makes people’s jobs harder than they need to be.

What we stand for

Technology

Technology that makes security easier to manage, and that helps health professionals do their work while keeping patient data secured.

Security

A management approach that gets cybersecurity implemented smoothly, without breaking the way teams actually work.

Well-being

Psychological intervention that helps people feel better, because a secure organisation is made of people, not just systems.

Our values

Which company does not claim to have values? Living by them is the hard part. At Apalala, our values are more than our culture: they are our compass, our decision tool, and the reason the company exists.

Humanity
Not Humanity with a capital H, but seeing everybody as our equal, as a brother or sister, as a friend. We favour mutual respect, dialogue, win-win solutions and compassion, while keeping our critical mind and our goals. What we do is people-centric security.
Pleasure
Without fun, is life worth living? Enjoying our job, helping our customers, working with passionate and exciting people to create, achieve, move forward and share: that is our way of life.
Trust
In a field where paranoia has turned from a pathology into a skill, we chose to put trust at the centre of our work: trust in our customers and their people, the trust they place in us, trust in our partners and colleagues, and confidence in people and their ability to change. We are not naive, but trusting is our default attitude. When it makes us take risks, they are measured and accepted.
Honesty
In the security world, honesty, integrity and fairness are essential. But that is not why this value is ours. We are honest out of respect for ourselves and for others, and because it is the only attitude that lasts: for our customers, for our company and for everyone’s progress.
Freedom
Our freedom to think, to choose our partners, our solutions and our customers is a condition of our integrity and of our pleasure. So is our freedom to do things differently: the wish to challenge what is in place, and the right to achieve what others thought impossible.
Progress
We want to grow and, from there, to help our customers, our profession and, idealistic as it sounds, everyone progress. Continuous improvement is in our genes. And progress is only worthwhile if it is shared by all, so we share what we can, within the limits of our clients’ confidentiality.
Pragmatism
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. That is why we are pragmatic: what matters is what works. Not the theory, the standards or the best practices, but the situation, and what will work in that situation.
Efficiency
Effectiveness is the ratio between the objective and the result. We add efficiency: the ratio between the effort and the result. We like the Pareto principle, and quick wins are our hobby. We still aim for 100%, but when 20% of the effort brings 80% of the result, starting there makes everybody win.
Beauty
When we make something, we would rather make it beautiful and elegant. First for the pleasure of creating something beautiful, and also because it makes it more appealing and easier to use. Keeping tools and processes simple and attractive is our rule.

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;

From “If—”, by Rudyard Kipling

Who we work with

Finance and insurance
Organisations where trust and compliance are the product.
IT and telecom
Teams that live in the infrastructure and need security to keep up with it.
Transport
Operations that cannot stop, and cannot afford surprises.

Where the name comes from

Apalala is a dragon, green and blue, which is also why the brand looks the way it does. We picked a dragon over a wolf because a dragon guards its territory without hunting passers-by: powerful, watchful, and on your side. Ask us over coffee for the full story behind the spelling.

Work with us

We hire people who care about the craft more than the buzzword. If that sounds like you, there is no application portal and no robot reading your CV: write to us directly.

jobs@apalala.be

Curious how this would look on your problem?

One email is enough to start a conversation with a human from our team.

Get in touch