In its many briefings with cybersecurity distributors, some of the constant themes Omdia hears is why enterprises want cybersecurity platforms.
Throughout almost all segments of cybersecurity, the opening assertion from massive distributors all the time goes one thing like this:
“Enterprises have too many standalone safety merchandise. They’re costly to buy, deploy, and handle; level options perform in a silo as a result of they aren’t designed to work collectively; educated, skilled cybersecurity professionals are onerous to seek out and tougher to maintain — therefore, fewer merchandise imply extra environment friendly coaching and staffing for CISOs. To not point out, they are not working as a result of look what occurred with that newest huge scary information breach!”
As an alternative, distributors declare, enterprises may get higher outcomes if they provide up their multitude of standalone merchandise and as an alternative buy a cybersecurity platform resolution, which rolls up the capabilities of many discreet merchandise into an all-in-one providing from a single vendor.
CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Development Micro, and lots of others have positioned themselves as cybersecurity platform distributors, using go-to-market messaging that emphasizes the combination, single person interface, improved safety efficacy, and higher return on funding that their respective cybersecurity platforms present.
On its face, this appears smart. All of the above-mentioned challenges that include level options are very actual. Omdia asserts enterprises want their cybersecurity merchandise to work collectively, particularly by exchanging information and performing orchestrated features, however constructing and working an built-in ecosystem of best-of-breed safety options supplied by many distributors is a unending problem, one which retains safety architects awake at evening.
A Rising Variety of Deployed Merchandise
Plus, at the moment’s enterprises actually do have a lot of safety merchandise. Omdia analysis reveals {that a} majority of enterprises have 21 or extra standalone safety merchandise, and a 3rd of organizations have 31 or extra.
It is not onerous to purchase into the gross sales pitch from platform distributors that the quickest means for enterprises to enhance their safety is by shopping for fewer level merchandise and shifting spending to cybersecurity platforms.
Nevertheless, in response to Omdia analysis, it is merely not taking place.
In accordance with information from the 2023 Omdia Cybersecurity Choice Maker survey, organizations indicated an elevated in variety of standalone safety merchandise, not a lower.
Supply: Omdia
Omdia analysis reveals that from June 2022 to Could 2023, greater than 80% of survey respondents noticed a rise within the variety of standalone safety merchandise of their organizations (161 respondents). Moreover, for 44% of respondents, it wasn’t only a minor improve; in these enterprises, the variety of standalone merchandise elevated 11% or extra. Conversely, simply 7% of respondents famous a lower.
The numbers spotlight a stark distinction between the notion that’s being superior by cybersecurity platform distributors, and the fact being noticed in enterprises. Regardless of the vendor-touted advantages of the platform strategy, information signifies enterprises nonetheless reside in a best-of-breed strategy.
Omdia theorizes there are a number of potential explanations:
Messaging: Platform distributors merely aren’t successfully speaking the advantages of a platform-based strategy. That is potential, however unlikely. Anybody who has considered vendor web sites or attended an trade commerce present like Black Hat lately has obtained a heavy dose of platform-centric advertising and marketing.
Entrenchment: Cost is tough, notably in cybersecurity, and safety groups are often loath to desert instruments into which they’ve invested effort and time to realize their desired outcomes. It’s a lot simpler for an incumbent vendor to win a renewal than it’s for a rival to win a displacement.
Lock-in: Moreover, in lots of circumstances, the imaginative and prescient of a migration to a platform strategy requires a dedication to a broad, expansive, and probably disruptive change. Implementing a platform strategy means making a long-term dedication to at least one vendor and forgoing selections down the road. Many enterprises could also be reluctant to cede that stage of management.
Efficacy: Enterprises merely don’t see cybersecurity platforms delivering the specified outcomes. Certainly, Omdia has noticed that many if not most cybersecurity platforms are created via a sequence of level product acquisitions, every of which is then re-engineered to be a element of a platform providing. In follow, this implies a single platform could embrace instruments written in a number of programming languages, utilizing totally different information codecs, and requiring incongruent person interfaces, making a sequence of underlying technical challenges that negatively impression platform outcomes.
Specificity: Enterprises buy level merchandise as a result of they are typically superb at fixing a really particular downside, and that earns loyalty amongst prospects. Area of interest distributors that efficiently ease a key cybersecurity ache level can stand the check of time amid a tumultuous trade. Living proof, distributors AlgoSec and Tufin have been addressing multivendor firewall administration happening twenty years and counting, when throughout that point cybersecurity titans like McAfee and Symantec have risen and fallen.
These are only a few of the potential causes, and Omdia intends to conduct additional analysis on this space, however for now, there are a number of notable takeaways.
Settle for Enterprise Actuality
For distributors, fostering a cybersecurity platform could also be a smart enterprise technique, however it’s equally vital to simply accept the fact few enterprises are shopping for into single-vendor platforms. Assembly the wants of the market additionally requires catering to organizations dwelling a best-of-breed strategy. This implies distributors shouldn’t solely assist ease of integration via know-how partnerships and open requirements but additionally decrease the finger-pointing when prospects need assistance making rival distributors’ choices work collectively.
For enterprises, the best-of-breed strategy could also be acquainted, however platform distributors are working onerous to handle lots of the shortcomings which have hindered all-in-one cybersecurity platforms up to now. When resolution refresh cycles come up, it is value stepping again and taking a broader have a look at whether or not the evolving platform panorama could provide a greater long-term strategy. For these centered on level options, ensure the necessities embrace precise examples of profitable best-of-breed integrations and testimonials from prospects who’ve achieved the specified outcomes from their built-in safety architectures.
For service suppliers and channel companions, platform distributors’ struggles are your alternatives. On one hand, working via (or totally eradicating) the challenges of implementing and working a best-of-breed cybersecurity resolution structure is not simple, however distributors and enterprises alike desperately want this help. Then again, cybersecurity platforms make for a compelling service providing, whereas evangelizing the advantages of those platforms is an space the place distributors reliance on the channel is just rising.
For extra data, learn Omdia Cybersecurity Choice Maker 2023: Total Findings & Enterprise Cybersecurity Operations (SecOps) (Omdia subscription required).
