The Total Economic Impact™ Of Mimecast

Mimecast Advanced Email Security is an AI-powered, enterprise email security solution used to block email-based threats such as phishing, malware, and business email compromise (BEC) with flexible deployment methods that include Email Security Cloud Integrated, a cloud-native, API-enabled email security (CAPES) deployment; and Email Security Cloud Gateway, a secure email gateway (SEG) deployment. The Mimecast product suite also includes Email Archive and Engage. Customers can further expand upon Advanced Email Security with support, services, and add-ons including DMARC Analyzer and Collaboration Security.

Mimecast commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Mimecast.¹ The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Mimecast on their organizations.

To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed seven representatives from six organizations with experience using Mimecast, including both CAPES and SEG deployment methods. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization. This composite is a global organization with 2,500 users whom it desires to protect with Mimecast as an extension of its native email infrastructure using Mimecast’s Email Security Cloud Integrated deployment method.

Interviewees said that prior to using Mimecast, their organizations typically either used on-premises legacy solutions, other email security solutions, or native email security infrastructure. However, prior attempts yielded limited success, leaving them with challenges around email security efficacy, efficiency, and reliability.

After investing in Mimecast, the interviewees’ organizations benefited from increased security efficacy, improved efficiencies for IT and security teams as well as end users, and overall business benefits from enhanced security.

Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:

• Strengthened security against malicious emails. The composite organization implements Mimecast to extend the efficacy of its native email platform and address email-based threats, including attacks designed to succeed with native email security infrastructure. Due to this increased efficacy, the composite organization avoids external attacks and the associated costs of breaches, such as fines, business disruptions, and revenue loss. Forrester used interviewee data and Forrester’s Security Survey, 2023 to calculate this value.² Over three years, the strengthened security is worth $1.1 million to the composite organization.
• Improved efficiency of security operations with 24% time savings addressing email-based attacks and 50% time savings on email platform management. The composite organization’s security and IT teams benefit from the security efficacy of Mimecast, its APIs and integrations, automation, and more, allowing it to spend time on higher-value tasks. These time savings are based on the composite organization’s seven security employees and one IT employee productively reallocating 2,267 total hours per year. Over three years, this productivity benefit is worth $337,000 to the composite organization.
• Improved efficiency of end users with 24% time savings on email-based attacks. Given Mimecast’s efficacy, end users benefit from fewer unwanted and malicious emails in their inboxes, allowing them to use those time savings for more valuable tasks. Forrester calculates the value of this improved efficiency based on the composite organization’s 2,500 end users saving hours of productivity with each avoided incident. Over three years, this productivity benefit is worth $727,000 to the composite organization.

Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Business benefits, including reputation protection. Via strengthened security with Mimecast, the composite organization reduces its chance of being compromised and not only avoids the losses associated with breaches (e.g., revenue losses, contract cancelations, fines), but it also protects its brand and reputation by avoiding unwanted email sends and negative publicity. In addition, Mimecast’s feature set helps the composite organization protect its brand and email reputation even further by ensuring its domains are trusted, and DMARC Analyzer provides DMARC authentication monitoring for domains, which increases customer trust in the brand and leads to potential benefits and revenue growth related to email marketing.
• Mimecast services, support, and customer experience. Mimecast’s customer service and support enables the composite organization to implement Mimecast products more quickly. Additionally, it utilizes Mimecast’s technical support to help it achieve its business outcome goals.

Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:

• Licensing costs of $438,000. In addition to paying a license fee per user per year for Mimecast, the composite organization purchases Advanced Support and Guided Implementation services. It also has the option to purchase add-ons.
• Implementation, training, and ongoing management costs of $163,000. After choosing to invest in Mimecast, the composite organization commits time to implement the email security solution, educate and train employees, and manage the solution on an ongoing basis.

The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $2.13 million over three years versus costs of $602,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $1.53 million and an ROI of 255%.

Appendix A: Endnotes