Two big aspects in work environments have changed considerably in recent years: huge amounts of workers have shifted to more remote or hybrid work, and cyber crimes have increased drastically in response to vulnerabilities related to this. Such a scenario makes it crucial for businesses to adopt a rigorous Zero Trust cybersecurity stance to protect their evolving organizations. There are various tools and resources that can help create this framework. Microsoft cloud-based solutions provide a simplified and integrated way to set up a Zero Trust model, and Forrester’s recent Total Economic Impact™ report shows them to be a strong route to take.
92% ROI over Three Years
Forrester’s TEI reports look at the overall impacts of solutions on companies that adopt them. One of these indicators is the return on investment, or ROI—“a project’s expected return in percentage terms, calculated by dividing net benefits by costs.” Forrester found that Microsoft’s security solutions brought companies a 92% ROI over three years, with an investment payback of less than six months. This return on investment comes through various savings that occur as a result of the solution investment: lowered or eliminated costs of legacy software and infrastructure, reduced management time, greater employee productivity, and more.
Reduced Company Costs
One of the greatest reduced costs associated with switching to Microsoft’s cloud solutions was the elimination of legacy on-premises hardware and software, which saved organizations an average of $20 per employee per month. Costs were also lowered for help desk needs and IT administration—help desk calls were reduced by 50%. Microsoft Sentinel was found to reduce the number of false positives in alerts by 79%, and Defender’s capabilities could automatically remediate 90% of security incidents.
Another less obvious savings was in a lowered occurrence of regulatory fines, since tools like the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center help ensure that noncompliance doesn’t happen inadvertently. Its built-in advanced audit and discovery capabilities also reduced the resources needed for compliance management by 25%.
Improved Security
Of course, a central reason for adopting a Zero Trust strategy and the tools that support it is to strengthen security. This turns out to have an economic benefit as well, since breaches can be devastatingly costly to resolve. Microsoft solutions reduced the risk of security breaches by 50%, avoiding these injurious costs. Better visibility and mitigation strategies also reduced the amount spent if breaches did occur, by allowing for quicker response with minimal damage. Areas of improved protection included compromised credentials, phishing attacks, social engineering, compromised business emails, cloud misconfigurations, vulnerabilities in third party software, and malicious insiders—attack vectors that were responsible for 80% of data breaches reported mid-2021.
More Efficient Management
Another important indirect savings came from increased efficiency and productivity. Security and IT management teams freed up half of their time. Setting up users with new devices went 75% faster. The process of provisioning new infrastructure went from several months to a matter of days. And employees such as frontline workers gained more streamlined workflows and greater productivity. As one executive in the healthcare sector put it, “Our doctors and nurses are really busy saving lives. What we’re trying to do is get technology out of the way. Adding passwordless [authentication] and unifying access is going to help them focus more on their patients while keeping them more secure.”
Exploring Microsoft Zero Trust Security Solutions
Microsoft’s solutions set organizations up with everything they need to build a comprehensive Zero Trust security framework. This includes protection for data, identities, devices, network, infrastructure, and apps, integrated and designed for a Zero Trust model. Various tools work together in a streamlined way to give organizations the best security posture and allow for maximum productivity. If you’re considering adopting a Zero Trust model with Microsoft solutions, contact us today to find out how you can do it at an optimal cost before prices go up on March 1.