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Outsourcing services that transform businesses
Since its founding in 1966, transcosmos has provided business process outsourcing (BPO) services for companies in a variety of industries. In recent years, the company has focused on “Digital BPO” services to streamline operations and increase productivity for clients.
“These days, IT forms the bedrock of various customer operations,” says Koichi Nakadai, Deputy Department Head, Business Transformation Department, Business Promotion Division, BPO Services Headquarters at transcosmos. “ITO services are an important component that reinforces our BPO services as a whole. We want to use various IT systems and applications to transform our customers’ businesses, which is why we are transforming our IT platforms and business operations.”
Securely accessing client-specific networks
The BPO services have served a diverse set of client business systems and security needs by building physically separated networks on a per-customer basis and connecting to those separate environments. From small-scale setups of two or three computers to large deployments of several hundred machines, transcosmos managed a mix of more than 100 physical networks.
Addressing the need to scale, transcosmos began working on a telework environment for work style reform and business continuity planning purposes. However, to provide BPO services in a telework environment, it was necessary to have remote access systems that could safely connect to each client’s physical network. The company considered using a VPN, but with such a large number of physical networks, building and managing environments for these networks would be complex and expensive.
“We didn’t originally intend to provide service via telework, so we hadn’t built much of a VPN environment for that purpose,” says Shinji Murao, Business Planning Department, Business Strategy Unit, ITO Services Division, BPO Services Headquarters at transcosmos. “We considered many different solutions, but it seemed difficult to resolve the network and security problems using conventional technologies. We needed a new architecture that could improve security with little management overhead.”
That’s when transcosmos discovered Zero Trust security architecture. Of the options available, Akamai’s enterprise solutions best fit their needs.
Enterprise Application Access provides a cohesive package of strong authentication, authorization, and accounting through Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), a cloudbased remote access solution. By implementing virtual machines as Enterprise Application Access connectors, a secure remote access environment could be built without changing the network structure with its physical isolations. The implementation of Enterprise Application Access has let transcosmos consolidate all BPO operations onto a single machine, whereas operations were previously separated across multiple computers for each client network.
“Akamai has proven success working behind the scenes supporting internet traffic around the world and has worked with a large number of companies in the financial industry and other sectors where trustworthiness is most important,” says Murao. “In addition, the ability of Enterprise Application Access to scale and support a company with 100,000 employees made it an easy decision for our other business lines and overseas clients.”
Akamai has proven success working behind the scenes supporting internet traffic around the world and has worked with a large number of companies in the financial industry and other sectors where trustworthiness is most important.
Shinji Murao, Business Planning Department, Business Strategy Unit, ITO Services Division, BPO Services Headquarters, transcosmos
Improving ease of use and security without changing client security policies
When transcosmos first implemented the Akamai solutions at some of its offices, the company observed firsthand how Akamai’s integrated management console made it unnecessary to separate management and operations on a per-product basis, such as for conventional firewalls and proxy servers.
“Network and security policies and designs differ substantially from company to company,” says Murao. “With Enterprise Application Access, it’s possible to utilize the existing network configuration as is and implement Zero Trust Network Access. By linking it with Secure Internet Access Enterprise, we are using an adaptive device security posture that automatically blocks risky connections. The ability to transition over to advanced security measures, while maintaining the existing network configuration, directly leads to added value for our customers.”
Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a cloud-based secure web gateway (SWG) for connections to serve a variety of business systems and security needs. Murao is especially pleased with Secure Internet Access Enterprise’s incident analysis functionality. A conventional system environment requires users to deal with even minor alerts on a case-by-case basis, and after time-consuming investigation and analysis, many are found to be insignificant issues. With Secure Internet Access Enterprise, statuses can be monitored in real time on a granular, user ID–specific basis with automatically generated reports. “It’s already an essential tool for us,” Murao says.
Zero Trust is a new approach best understood by using it
The Zero Trust security strategy with Akamai represents a new architecture approach for transcosmos. “Enterprise Application Access and Secure Internet Access Enterprise are tools that change our conventional security approach. It is difficult to accept without eliminating the preconceptions that existed under perimeter security,” says Nakadai. “To that end, we implemented a thorough proof of concept. We experienced for ourselves the ability to achieve secure remote access without losing productivity and saw how easy it was to manage and operate. Through our own experience, we knew this solution would yield substantial benefits. These days, we look back with amazement at how complicated and troublesome things used to be."
The ability of Enterprise Application Access to scale and support a company with 100,000 employees made it an easy decision for our other business lines and overseas clients.
Shinji Murao, Business Planning Department, Business Strategy Unit, ITO Services Division, BPO Services Headquarters, transcosmos
Looking ahead
In the future, transcosmos plans to deploy Enterprise Application Access and Secure Internet Access Enterprise to its BPO services management center staff of nearly 8,200. It also aims to fully integrate network management using those products.
Nakadai says there is a need to continue strengthening security, and to incorporate a secure access service edge (SASE) framework. “We implemented ZTNA and SWG, which work without relying on a physical network, and we really saw the added value. By extension, we are also considering the SASE design concept moving forward.”
He continues, “We are evaluating both short- and long-term plans for various security features that were previously in place at the physical network perimeters — making them cloud-based and distributing them at the edge.”
Additionally, transcosmos plans to pursue further optimization with Akamai, with an eye on the roadmap. “Working with Akamai, transcosmos is well-positioned to continue supporting clients’ operations in Japan and around the world in the years ahead,” concludes Nakadai.
About transcosmos
Since its founding in 1966, transcosmos has worked to make its clients more competitive by combining superior talent with the latest technological capabilities to deliver higher-value services. Today, at 166 offices in 30 countries in Asia and across the world, transcosmos provides cost optimization and sales expansion support for customers’ business processes in pursuit of operational excellence. transcosmos aims to be a global digital transformation partner that helps its clients handle changes in the business environment and utilize digital solutions to revolutionize their operations. www.trans-cosmos.co.jp
About Akamai
Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. With the world’s most distributed compute platform — from cloud to edge — we make it easy for customers to develop and run applications, while we keep experiences closer to users and threats farther away. Learn more about Akamai’s security, compute, and delivery solutions at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on Twitter and LinkedIn.