Standalone Safety Merchandise Outsell Cybersecurity Platforms

In its many briefings with cybersecurity distributors, one of the crucial constant themes Omdia hears is why enterprises want cybersecurity platforms.

Throughout almost all segments of cybersecurity, the opening assertion from giant distributors at all times goes one thing like this:

“Enterprises have too many standalone safety merchandise. They’re costly to buy, deploy, and handle; level options operate in a silo as a result of they aren’t designed to work collectively; skilled, skilled cybersecurity professionals are exhausting to search out and more durable to maintain — therefore, fewer merchandise imply extra environment friendly coaching and staffing for CISOs. To not point out, they don’t seem to be working as a result of look what occurred with that newest massive scary information breach!”

As an alternative, distributors declare, enterprises might 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 mixing, single consumer interface, improved safety efficacy, and higher return on funding that their respective cybersecurity platforms present.

On its face, this appears wise. 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 endless problem, one which retains safety architects awake at night time.

A Rising Variety of Deployed Merchandise

Plus, immediately’s enterprises actually do have a lot of safety merchandise. Omdia analysis exhibits {that a} majority of enterprises have 21 or extra standalone safety merchandise, and a 3rd of organizations have 31 or extra.

It is not exhausting to purchase into the gross sales pitch from platform distributors that the quickest approach for enterprises to enhance their safety is by shopping for fewer level merchandise and shifting spending to cybersecurity platforms.

Nonetheless, in keeping with Omdia analysis, it is merely not occurring.

In line with information from the 2023 Omdia Cybersecurity Determination Maker survey, organizations indicated an elevated in variety of standalone safety merchandise, not a lower.

Chart:How has the number of standalone security products in your organization changed over the past 12 months?

Supply: Omdia

Omdia analysis exhibits 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 truth 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 business commerce present like Black Hat lately has obtained a heavy dose of platform-centric advertising.
Entrenchment: Cost is difficult, notably in cybersecurity, and safety groups are normally loath to desert instruments into which they’ve invested effort and time to attain 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 instances, 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 1 vendor and forgoing decisions 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 collection of level product acquisitions, every of which is then re-engineered to be a element of a platform providing. In apply, this implies a single platform might embrace instruments written in a number of programming languages, utilizing completely different information codecs, and requiring incongruent consumer interfaces, making a collection of underlying technical challenges that negatively affect 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 business. Living proof, distributors AlgoSec and Tufin have been addressing multivendor firewall administration occurring 20 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 necessary to simply accept the truth few enterprises are shopping for into single-vendor platforms. Assembly the wants of the market additionally requires catering to organizations residing a best-of-breed strategy. This implies distributors mustn’t solely help ease of integration via know-how partnerships and open requirements but in addition reduce 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 exhausting to handle lots of the shortcomings which have hindered all-in-one cybersecurity platforms so far. 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 might supply a greater long-term strategy. For these targeted on level options, make certain 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. Alternatively, 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 simply rising.

For extra info, learn Omdia Cybersecurity Determination Maker 2023: General Findings & Enterprise Cybersecurity Operations (SecOps) (Omdia subscription required).