JULY - AUGUST 2025Autobusiness outlook 9It is absolutely crucial to secure the remote workforce,so they have ease of access whileproviding the same security posture regardless of where they are connecting fromshouldallow for a three-to-five-yeartimeline to projectestimates forcostsavings. Second,SASE enhances productivity and the user experience withimprovements to remote access--faster connection speeds, less latency and reduced time to authenticate/MFA.These improvements will also reduce your IT helpdesk calls and support volume and is a real cost savings to consider in your business case. The last part of your business case which is the hardest to calculate is the reduction in risk that this advanced security will provide the organization for defending against ransomware, phishing and data exfiltration/compromise. When you have finalized yourbusiness case reflecting business outcomes and value to the organization, you are now ready to socialize with your Executive teams to obtain alignment on your approach and buy-in for your solution!Now that youhave the business buy-in,let'sdiscuss how to implementSASE.It is important to have a dedicated tiger team to work on this major change initiative that will require a significant time commitment.You'll also want toengage your shared services teams (Networking, Engineering, Infrastructure) as they are critical to the integration and project outcome.Since the security features and benefits are typically of less importance for employees, your next challenge will be convincing them to activate SASE when deployed to their devices. An effective approach when marketing to your employees is torebrand the solution­ deemphasizing the technology used. Rebranding upfrontoffers you the flexibility toseamlessly replace the technology in the future and eliminate the need to rebrand your documentation and marketing materials i.e.,Executivepresentations.If you are in a large organization with many products and business units, you will want to take a strategic phased approach for your deployment. Start with your IT organization and perform phased pilots to work out any issues that may occur.After each pilot leverageemployee feedback surveys so you can understand pain points and how you can iterate and improve with future planneddeployments. It is vital to meet with your IT stakeholders from each business unit prior to deployment. This first step is key to understanding access requirementsspecific to their users so you can build out Zero Trust access policies and only provide employees withthe access that is needed to perform their work. You should build access policies slightly more permissive on a business unit-by-business unit basis and create one policy for technical users and one policyfor business users. When the access policies meet youruser's requirements you can slowly enforce additional security controls around their access and threat protection features.As you communicate to your employees to enroll into the solutionyou should be transparentwithwhat you will and will notbe monitoring.This is an area of concern for many employees who may perceive this as a tool monitoring their internet activity. And finally, you should create KPIs to show the value of the solution to your Executive team as you deploy it to maintain their buy-in. Some of the key metrics and outcomes that show value are number of advanced threats blocked, number of applications securely accessed, decommissioning of legacy equipment with cost savings, reduction of helpdesk calls to re-image or password reset, etc.Keep in mind, a Zero Trust implementation is a journey and not a destination. It will take time, effort and resources. The stepsI've outlined above willlay the foundation fora successful deployment of your Zero Trust project to add security value and enable the business.
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