As the attack surface expands, companies find themselves adopting an array of cybersecurity solutions. However, the adoption of more solutions inadvertently gives rise to a complex and challenging cybersecurity ecosystem.
The proliferation of diverse tools results in a fragmented defense strategy, creating difficulties in managing and orchestrating these solutions cohesively. Recognizing the need for efficiency and streamlined operations, organizations are increasingly compelled to seek consolidation solutions.
A report by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), ‘The Buyer’s Journey to Integrated Solutions from Strategic Partners,’ shows that the current shift from stand-alone best of breed solutions towards integrated solutions is in full swing. The report reveals that a resounding 78% of respondents acknowledge the imperative need for vendor consolidation efforts. This sentiment strongly aligns with the insights offered by Gartner that reported that 75% of companies surveyed are actively looking into security vendor consolidation.
“Enabling companies to build a more robust ecosystem that integrates best-of-breed products could provide a win-win resolution for both security vendors and their customers.”
While consolidation is strongly desired, the ESG report found that 80% of companies surveyed are still looking at Best of Breed solutions in their procurement process. This suggests that enabling companies to build a more robust ecosystem that integrates best-of-breed products could provide a win-win resolution for both security vendors and their customers.
In the following Blog, we’ll dig deeper into the ESG research findings.
What Is Driving The Shift to Integrated Solutions? What Are Customers Looking For?
The ESG report provides insight into the growing demand for integrated solutions. It is attributed to several key factors:
First, businesses and individuals are increasingly seeking streamlined and efficient processes. As technology advances and becomes more complex, there is a greater recognition of the benefits of interoperability. Integrated solutions facilitate seamless communication and data sharing between various systems, promoting a more connected and collaborative environment. Integrated solutions bring together different tools and functionalities into a cohesive platform, eliminating the need for separate, standalone applications. This not only enhances convenience but also improves overall productivity.
Another key reason for companies considering the move to integrated offerings according to the report, is the belief that integration drives faster time to value, lower operating cost, faster/simpler evaluation of products, and improved economics . This all translates into a significant boost in Return on Investment (ROI). Since integrated solutions consolidate various tools and functionalities into a unified platform, they increase operational efficiency, as users can seamlessly navigate and manage tasks within a centralized environment.
Cost savings also play a crucial role in enhancing ROI. Integrated solutions often result in reduced expenses associated with maintaining and managing multiple standalone tools. Businesses save on training costs and the overall overhead of maintaining disparate systems. Furthermore, the efficiency gained from integrated solutions translates into time savings. When tasks and processes are streamlined, employees can focus on more strategic activities, increasing overall productivity. Ultimately, the interconnected nature of integrated solutions ensures more cohesive and efficient operations, contributes to higher productivity, reduced costs, and, consequently, an improved Return on Investment.
Finally, the ESG report shows that companies are looking for vendor integrated solutions to improve overall customer support. Having supported integrations, means companies can rely on vendors when issues arise. That said, deployment complexity of integrated solutions was mentioned as a key challenge, and troubleshooting root cause analysis was an issue that vendors need to address.
A Positive Experience
Businesses overall reported strong positive sentiment for integrated solutions. Many reported better than expected results. An increase in employee productivity was cited as the biggest benefit, followed closely by an overall decrease in complexity.
What Does This Mean For Security Vendors?
Vendors that provide integrated solutions and can deliver the benefits mentioned above are seeing stronger demand for their products. The ESG study found that many companies are increasing their budget for integrated offerings and that the decision is being driven from senior members of corporate executive teams.
The ESG study notes that vendors are expected to demonstrate the ease of implementation, improved return on investment, and customer support availability. Vendors also need to be able to demo their integrations for potential customers and provide a cohesive explanation of the joint solution’s benefits and configuration options.
Conclusion
The ESG report sheds light on the shift to integrated solutions. As the attack surface expands, new threats are identified, and compliance requirements change, companies look for new, best of breed security offerings to fill the gaps. As tools proliferate, companies feel the pain of managing a broad number of offerings, which in return raises the need for consolidation.
The reality is that today no single vendor can provide a complete security offering to solve all of their customers’ security needs. Companies are seeking more integrations and coordination across their security stack, in order to build a robust ecosystem. This requires vendors to have the ability to quickly build, maintain, support, and demo integrated, best-of-breed solutions.
The Synqly Cybersecurity Integration Platform addresses the growing need to enable a more integrated ecosystem and solves the challenge for both vendors and customer companies. Synqly enables vendors to easily develop desired integrations in a fraction of the time, and minimal resource investment. It allows vendors to easily demonstrate the supported use cases and benefits, as well as provide long-term support as these integrations are implemented in customer environments. It makes vendor solutions more desirable for customers that, as shown in the ESG report, look for integrated solutions for improved efficiency, cost-savings, and product ROI.
To learn more about Synqly’s Cybersecurity Integration Platform contact us today.
