Networking And Security Technology Convergence

Evidence and data. In shifting to a Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment, interviewees reported that their organizations were able to converge their networking and security stacks. Whereas they previously needed highly specialized resources to manage high-maintenance on-prem and cloud-based networking environments, interviewees pointed to the streamlined operations and optimized technology stack with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge. Interviewees detailed networking and security technology convergence benefits including:

• Cost and labor savings. Interviewees discussed how Fortinet Secure LAN Edge offered competitive cost savings while augmenting functionality and security. They also highlighted how Fortinet Secure LAN Edge lowered the labor and skilled expertise required to manage multiple vendors and freed up skilled headcount for higher-value activities.

  • The technology leader in the education industry said: “The Fortinet [investment] was twofold more cost-effective for network and wireless than [the competitor we considered], and the operating system being the same as the firewall was key for us. School districts have very few and limited resources with staffing, and we did not have to have [vendor-]certified engineers [with Fortinet].”
    
    Furthermore, the technology services manager in the healthcare industry shared that their organization was able to reallocate network administrators to higher-value activities. Instead of doing repetitive data entry work, their network administrators shifted towards solving strategic problems.
  • The CIO in the retail industry estimated that their organization saved up to $150,000 per year by streamlining their networking and security technologies with Fortinet: “We removed disparate [networking and security] solutions that did not communicate together and that were not patched or maintained with a centralized Fortinet solution. There were likely savings [of $100,000 to $150,000 annually] through consolidation because we had more ‘purchasing power’ by leveraging Fortinet everywhere.”

• Optimized upgrade and refresh cycles. Interviewees highlighted how their organizations needed to support fewer upgrades and refreshes and that those cycles were more stable with less disruption. Taken together, interviewees noted how this made it easier to maintain the latest and most secure versions of their software:

  • The technology leader in the education industry said: “Fortinet has taken away a lot of our headaches as far as having challenges with [deploying upgrades and new versions of] products. [With Fortinet], we feel more comfortable staying up to date on the latest and greatest [threats] without breaking.”
  • The technology services manager in the healthcare industry shared that their addition of FortiManager to their networking environment with FortiSwitches and FortiGates helped eliminate the effort needed to configure switches for technology updates, refreshes, and upgrades.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, the composite organization’s legacy, siloed networking and security solutions:

  • Cost $13,000,000 per year.
  • Required one FTE to manage relationships with its multiple vendors.

• With the Fortinet Secure LAN Edge solution, the composite reduces networking and security spend and the amount of labor needed to manage vendor tools by 20%.

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for a technology FTE is $142,380.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• An organization’s size and networking and security maturity, which can influence IT spend.

• An organization’s use of Fortinet services and actual costs, including support and/or warranty costs.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $5.0 million.

Improved Network Availability

Evidence and data. Interviewees discussed how Fortinet Secure LAN Edge improved their organizations’ availability of core network services with significant impacts on revenue operations and employee productivity. They further discussed how Fortinet helped their organizations:

• Reduce outages and downtime. Interviewees discussed how their organizations experienced fewer hours of downtime with Fortinet.

  • The technology services manager in the healthcare industry shared that the solution reduced downtime compared to their organization’s prior, manually configured environment, stating, “It will save us days [of disruption] if we have a hardware failure because the configurations are contained in [our Fortinet environment] and it’s just a matter of swapping out the hardware.”
  • The technology leader in the education industry shared that their organization’s converged and centralized network infrastructure with Fortinet improved its to maintain 5,000 switches across its distributed environment. By resegmenting its network with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge; however, the interviewee reported that the overall performance and resilience of core network services vastly improved, stating, “Since implementing this solution, our uptime is around 99.99%.”

• Optimize network capacity. Interviewees discussed how their organizations not only improved uptime but also optimized for different traffic flows across their environments without sacrificing stability or security. The technology leader in the education industry shared that their Fortinet Secure LAN Edge allowed their organization to service all Wi-Fi users, including during peak traffic times. This reduced the amount of business disruption caused by Wi-Fi capacity limits with their former solution.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, the composite experienced 20 hours of downtime annually on average due to unplanned downtime and performance degradations. Without intervention, downtime would increase to 30 hours in Year 2 and 45 in Year 3.

• The composite organization risks losing an average of $342,466 in revenue for every hour of network downtime.

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, the composite decreases downtime hours by 80%, recouping 10 hours of unplanned downtime in Year 1, 24 hours of unplanned downtime in Year 2, and 36 hours of unplanned downtime in Year 3.

• The composite’s operating margin is 11%.

• In the prior environment, unplanned downtime impacted 50% of the composite organization’s 10,000 end users.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for an end user is $40.

• Each end-user employee recaptures 25% of time savings toward productive tasks.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• An organization’s size, industry, and location, which may impact profitability, network performance, uptime, and other network availability factors prior to Fortinet.

• The role and salary of each user.

• The extent to which end users can recapture saved time toward productive work.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $4.2 million.

Networking Operational Efficiencies

Evidence and data. Interviewees discussed how their organizations’ networking teams were more productive and efficient due to the following features of the Fortinet Secure LAN Edge solution:

• Centralized networking operations. Interviewees described how converging their network and security technology with Fortinet conferred operational efficiencies compared to their organizations’ prior environments.

  • The CIO in the retail industry noted that Fortinet’s straightforward tools and infrastructure helped their organization avoid engineering labor required for network design and segmentation strategies. They also noted that Fortinet allowed their organization to better manage across both its B2C and B2B functions: “We’re able to holistically manage our Fortinet [stack] across both [of our organization’s] environments from a central location with limited staff. If my Fortinet specialist here at [one division] gets sick, my Fortinet specialist at the [other] division can also manage [our Fortinet environment], so that is extremely valuable.”
  • The technology leader in the education industry said: “[With] everything in the same user interface and being able to manage all of the controllers, the access points, and the switches through one system with FortiManager allows us to shift some responsibilities down to a lower level of support. Not everything has to be handled by the one person that knows how to do it. It’s made it a lot easier for us to manage and not rely on one person all the time to be able to fix everything.”

• Time-saving networking automations. Interviewees discussed their organizations’ prior networking environments, which were weighed down by highly manual processes for detecting devices and managing switches and firewalls. With Fortinet, their organizations were able to automate and make updates in batches, which led to faster processes for deployment and provisioning as well.

  • The IT security administrator in the manufacturing industry said: “With FortiSwitches, [network operations are] easily 25% more [efficient. Previously], when I had to make a change, we had to … log on to [each] switch [individually]. Now you just sign into the firewall and you make all the changes from there. You can bulk update by selecting multiple things and autoprovision. When you plug one [device] in, [Fortinet] detects it, and it sets it up for you. It makes it a lot easier.”
  • The technology leader in the education industry said that, prior to Fortinet, their organization dedicated days and weeks of scripting and updating switches after hours versus utilizing the FortiManager, which conferred significant time savings: “It would take a couple of weeks at least every six months to distribute patches, whereas with Fortinet it takes one to two evenings.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, the composite dedicated 12 FTEs to NetOps.

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, the composite organization’s NetOps FTEs increase efficiency by 50%.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for a technology FTE is $142,380.

• Each NetOps employee recaptures 80% of time savings toward productive tasks.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• The amount of time spent configuring and enforcing policies, provisioning users and sites, and other relevant NetOps activities.

• FTEs dedicated to NetOps, their expertise, and their actual fully burdened salaries.

• The extent to which NetOps resources can recapture saved time toward productive work.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.3 million.

Network Security Efficiencies

Evidence and data. The interviewees noted that Fortinet Secure LAN Edge’s converged networking and security tools contributed to an array of impacts on their organizations’ security and risk posture. Interviewees discussed how Fortinet helped strengthen their organizations’ security-driven wired and wireless Zero Trust strategy with value drivers including:

• Lower incident rates. Interviewees reported a more resilient network perimeter with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, allowing fewer incidents through than their prior environments.

• Reduced time spent on investigations. In addition to having fewer incidents requiring a response, interviewees also reported that converging networking and security infrastructure with Fortinet reduced false positives and greatly improved visibility for incident responders, thus reducing the amount of time they spent investigating issues.

  • The CIO in the retail industry noted Fortinet’s centralized security and networking tools saved 25% to 30% of the time that their organization’s two security analysts would have to dedicate to combing through disparate tools.
  • The IT security administrator in the manufacturing industry said that, with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, their organization was able to reduce the time it took to investigate and resolve network security incidents: “[With our prior] system, I was probably spending 2 to 3 hours a day cleaning up messes on PCs. [With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, that] might be an hour or two a week now.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, the composite dedicated four FTEs to network security.

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, network security FTEs experience a 75% reduction in incident response time with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for a network security FTE is $142,380.

• Each network security employee recaptures 80% of time savings toward productive tasks.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• An organization’s size, industry, location, and security maturity, which may influence security and risk metrics.

• The frequency of security incidents involving persistent threat actors and remediation efforts in the prior environment.

• FTEs dedicated to network security, their expertise, and their actual fully burdened salaries.

• The extent to which network security resources can recapture saved time toward productive work.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $653,000.

Reduced Cost Of A Material Breach

Evidence and data. Interviewees indicated that Fortinet Secure LAN Edge helped improve their organizations’ security posture by reducing the threat of an external attack on their organizations’ networks. In particular, they discussed how Fortinet helped with:

• Cyber risk reduction. Interviewees discussed how Fortinet Secure LAN Edge helped mitigate external threats with built-in Zero Trust, network access control, and microsegmentation.

  • The IT security administrator in the manufacturing industry said, “[With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge],I would say we’re at least 60% stronger in our security, if not higher.”
  • The technology leader in the education industry said: “We have been able to increase security and reliability on our network by being able to segment things out [with Fortinet]. In that process, we’ve also been able to find devices and things that we didn’t know were on our network or [other] possible problems. We’ve been able to restrict access to our more important things based on device [information].”
    
    The technology leader in the education industry also shared how centralizing and improving security operations with Fortinet allowed their organization to prevent external threats from gaining a foothold into its network: “The Fortinet firewalls and our distributed wireless controllers are essentially a firewall for the switch management. The licensing that we have on our firewalls covers some main security risks [around] breaches. I think Fortinet is doing a great job with that and so that’s what we utilize it for.”
  • The CIO in the retail industry told Forrester that their organization was able to improve its network security posture thanks to its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge investment: “Consolidating allows me to get information for the entire environment quickly. Obviously, we think [Fortinet] provides the best security of our perimeter.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• According to Forrester Research, the composite organization has:

  • A 68% likelihood of experiencing one or more breaches per year.³
  • A mean cumulative cost of breaches totaling $3,265,000.⁴
  • A 70% chance of breaches originating from external attacks.⁵

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• The composite organization’s annual risk exposure addressable with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge is $932,484 in Year 1 and $1,554,140 in Years 2 and 3.

• With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, the composite organization reduces the risk of breaches from external attacks by 60%.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for a technology FTE is $142,380.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• An organization’s size, industry, location, and security maturity, which may influence security and risk metrics and breach impacts.

• The frequency of security incidents involving persistent threat actors and remediation efforts in the prior environment.

• FTEs dedicated to network security, their expertise, and their actual fully burdened salaries.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.6 million.

Improved Profit And Agility

Evidence and data. As their organizations optimized their technology management and converged their networking and security tools on one platform with Fortinet, the interviewees reported higher levels of agility, leading to faster time to market, increased market share, and improved profit.

• The CIO in the retail industry reported that their organization was able to decrease the time it took to provision new stores by up to six weeks compared to the prior environment. This improved time to market also allowed it to open more stores in a shorter period of time compared to before Fortinet. They said: “Fortinet is an ‘intrinsic enablement tool’ that is installed whenever we are discussing a new physical or virtual environment (e.g., store, plant, etc.). … We’ve been very happy with having a core set of equipment that we can bring into a new environment.

• The technology leader in the education industry said that their organization was able to decrease the time needed to set up new sites. Before Fortinet, it could take weeks to deploy a new site; with Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, they were able to decrease the deployment time to a maximum of two days. Furthermore, the interviewee noted: “It was a lot simpler as far as the actual setup at the school, too. We didn’t have to have somebody onsite that knew how to configure every switch and all of that. … In that scenario, I don’t need specialists in the field; I just need technicians in the field, and then I need the engineers here managing it.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, the composite organization:

  • Earned an average of $57,692 in revenue per branch per week.
  • Opened an average of five new branches per year.
  • Took 12 weeks to open a new branch.

• With Fortinet Secure LAN Edge, the composite reduced the time it takes to open a branch by 50%, down to six weeks.

• The composite organization deploys and adopts 60% of its Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment by the end of Year 1. By the end of Year 2, all users are onboarded to Fortinet Secure LAN Edge.

• The composite’s operating margin is 11%.

Risks. The following potential risks may impact this benefit:

• The number of branches opened in the prior environment and the length of time required to provision new branches.

• An organization’s revenue, operating margin, and the portion of revenue earned from branches.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $344,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• IT help desk optimization. Interviewees noted how their Fortinet environments experience lower support volumes and also decreased the time it took to resolve user issues. This led to productivity improvements for support staff and intervening networking and security staff working to resolve issues and for general business users submitting tickets. Interviewees noted how Fortinet offered improved visibility and context in the triage phase.
  
  The technology leader in the education industry said: “With our call center, [IT support staff] are able to view all the schools or look and see what’s up and what’s down. … A lot of times, we’d have to have somebody actually go out and verify things. [Now], they’re able to resolve a lot of issues very quickly.”

• Cyber insurance retention. The IT security administrator in the manufacturing industry said that their organization was able to retain cyber insurance and reduce cyber insurance premiums with their Fortinet configuration.

• A Fortinet roadmap, technology partnerships, and channel support and partnership. Interviewees shared how their close partnerships with Fortinet and its evolving and responsive roadmap were key value drivers for their organizations’ Fortinet investments.
  
  The CIO in the retail industry noted: “I truly appreciate the partnership that I have with Fortinet. … The customer service aspect of Fortinet from my perspective is so great compared to my experience with the others that it sells itself to me. … They’re very proactive in helping us understand what you have, what you need to start thinking about replacing, etc. So, that is a distinguishing aspect beyond just the capabilities and tools.”

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Fortinet Secure LAN Edge and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Additional business use cases. Interviewees noted that their organizations were able to develop new engagement models with their customers by leveraging new capabilities with their Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environment. This included building customer-facing applications and installing customer Wi-Fi and mobile services at branches.
  
  The CIO in the retail industry shared that their organization was able to develop new ways of serving their customers and enhancing operations with their Fortinet Secure LAN Edge environments. They reported that their organization’s Fortinet investment allowed it to explore two new initiatives to improve customer experience: “One was to provide wireless for tablets devices and mobile devices that we have. The second was for the concept of a mobile point-of-sale station, which [is] what we would call a ‘line buster’ in retail speak. We’re going to introduce technology at different times and one of those might be to allow mobile devices to scan items for accounting, inventory, etc.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).