Akamai Guardicore Segmentation Delivered 152% Return on Investment According to New Total Economic Impact Study

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, today released a new study showing Akamai Guardicore Segmentation delivered a total benefit of US$9.6 million over three years and paid for itself (i.e., payback period) in less than six months for a composite organization based on interviewed customers. Forrester’s The Total Economic Impact™ Of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation also found it delivered a 152% return on investment (ROI) and saved more than US$2.9 million by reducing or eliminating legacy systems like traditional firewalls.

Findings from the study include:

• Recouped US$4.1 million over three years. Organizations that use Akamai Guardicore Segmentation can minimize their attack surface, leading to reduced downtime and an increase in revenue retention from 1.4% to 2% over a three-year period, respectively.
• Incident management effort reduced by 70% by year 3. With network microsegmentation with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite organization’s security operations (SecOps) and network operations (NetOps) teams can detect and respond to potential threats faster and more effectively.
• Streamlined operations require fewer cybersecurity resources. With Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite’s SecOps and NetOps teams easily visualize microsegmentation, implement policy in a single dashboard, and simplify security posture and validation. This resulted in an organization needing 33% fewer cybersecurity professionals, which led to savings of nearly US$1.4 million over three years.
• More than US$2.9 million saved by reducing or eliminating legacy systems. With Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, the composite organization manages its existing firewalls more granularly by reducing its east-west firewalls footprint, improves network visibility, and ensures continued network and security

Study respondents also reported unquantified benefits, including the ability to integrate Akamai Guardicore Segmentation with existing security tools like security information and event management (SIEM) and endpoint detection and response (EDR). Respondents also noted advantages like using professional services to identify additional use cases, improved job satisfaction for cybersecurity professionals, and greater productivity for the IT team. 

Respondents reported that one of the features that they were looking for in a microsegmentation solution was for it to be deployed more quickly with out-of-the-box templates, especially compared with firewalls, while having the flexibility of grouping and labeling and allowing for the ability to customize policies over time.

Customers chose Akamai Guardicore Segmentation to prevent lateral movement of threats and reduce attack surface, enhancing overall security. Customers found that with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation they were able to improve the visibility into their network traffic and interactions between systems to detect and respond to potential threats more effectively. With Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, customers were better able to protect legacy systems critical for their operations but were previously vulnerable to modern cyberthreats.

“By implementing Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, organizations can reduce their incident management efforts, streamline operations to require fewer cybersecurity resources, and improve visibility and control — all while realizing a 152% return on investment,” said Ofer Wolf, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Enterprise Security at Akamai. “This study emphasizes how Akamai is helping our customers contain threats and stay ahead of attackers while protecting both their systems and data.”

Study methodology

Akamai commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential ROI that enterprises may realize by deploying Akamai Guardicore Segmentation. The purpose of this study was to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Akamai Guardicore Segmentation on their organizations.

To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed five representatives with experience using Akamai Guardicore Segmentation. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that is a global organization in a highly regulated industry with US$1 billion in annual revenue and 5,000 employees at 10 global locations.

What customers who participated in the study are saying about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation

• “The biggest benefit [of Guardicore] is having more security resilience to avoid security incidents and cyberattacks. And that’s due to enhanced visibility.” — Director of IT Security, Healthcare Services
• “Is Guardicore worth it? It’s all about compartmentalizing and segmentation, which is key for any network. The benefits of automated discovery and visualization are paramount. When you talk about consistent deployment and less errors in deployment policies around the globe, [it’s] absolutely [worth it]. And when you talk about effective breach remediation, which is absolutely paramount and really being able to sleep at night knowing that we’ve done the right thing, [it’s] absolutely [worth it].” — Infosec Director, Financial Services
• “We had a security breach in 2023. Post recovery, we needed to increase the overall security posture of the organization. One of [the goals was to enhance] network segmentation to prevent lateral movement. That’s what led us to select Guardicore. — Head of Infrastructure, Enabling Software 
• “What tilted things in favor of Guardicore? Legacy operating system support was one of the big ones that some of the [competing products] did not support. The other piece was the scalability and visibility, as well as the ease of the learning period through enforcement.” — Infosec Officer, Specialty Manufacturing

Learn more about Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and how it can help organizations on their Zero Trust journey.