Securing the Future: The Business Case for SASE Adoption

Our 2020 report on the “Future of SD WAN and SASE” carried out just after the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for agility to support the large numbers of remote workers and how SD-WAN and SASE was being used to support companies in this endeavour. Five years on there is still a need to enable remote workers to access applications securely and effectively, wherever they are located. But as this has become the norm, what are the other key drivers for the adoption of SASE? What is the current state of the SASE market in terms of adoption of the technology, and where is the marketing heading in 2025?

In this blog we’ll take a look at the current trends, why companies are adopting SASE, some key factors to take into consideration when adopting and implementing SASE and how you can sell the SASE concept to your board of directors.

The Current State of SASE Adoption

According to a report by CATO Networks, most companies have either already deployed SASE (16% of respondents) or had a deployment planned by 2024 (40%), with another 16% of respondents planning a deployment in 2025 or later. 80% of respondents in CATO’s 2023 SASE Survey, who said that they had deployed SASE, were satisfied with their decision to deploy it.

SASE sees the convergence of both networking and security, and as part of the move towards SASE the report also saw that the vast majority (88% of respondents) are consolidating these two areas or are moving towards improving collaboration between the two teams.

Remote working is still here to stay, and SASE is a good approach to handle this, as we saw in our 2020 report, but for the 98% who responded to the survey there are still challenges in securing remote user access to corporate applications and resources. With an increased threat landscape, security is now becoming one of the key driving forces behind SASE adoption. Security, along with a lack of knowledge and skills in this area, are key challenges. How do you securely enable the use of unmanaged devices, consistently protect sensitive data, provide third parties with secure access to applications? These are just a few of the challenges that security teams have to contend with.

Companies are moving towards the concept of Zero Trust Networks and are starting their SASE implementation with the Security Service Edge (SSE), according to TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group report in June 2023. SSE is the security component of SASE, that brings all security services, which include Secure Web Gateway (SVW) Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) together to secure access to web, cloud services and private applications. According to the same report, 72% of their respondents are adopting SSE first, with 25% adopting SD-WAN first and only 4% taking a fully converged approach from the start. 9 out of 10 of their respondents had already implemented SASE at the time of their report or were beginning SSE implementations in 2023/2024.

Implementing SASE

As the reports show, security is currently a key driver for adopting SASE and taking a gradual approach to SASE adoption is often the recommended path for small and medium sized businesses. A gradual approach to SASE implementation often starts with the following security scenarios:

• Replacing your VPN with Zero Trust Network Access
• Consolidating and modernising your security stack
• Or, if you are looking at implementing advanced security

Other areas for considering a gradual SASE implementation are when your existing WAN contract expires and it is worth considering moving to SASE if you need to optimise global connectivity. You can find out more about how to reduce costs and improve WAN optimisation here: Two manufacturing case studies illustrate the benefits of SD WAN and SASE

For more information about how to implement SASE, we take a look at this in detail in our blog: Architecting the right SASE solution for your business >

So, how do you sell SASE implementation to your board?

The trend towards security being the key driver in SASE adoption is not surprising given the increasing number of cyberattacks focused on business disruption. This is taking security into the boardroom and cyber resilience is a priority for executives. With cyberattacks being able to bring down the business, whether that is through business disruption or ransomware demands, it makes strategic and financial sense to invest in preventative security solutions.

When presenting to the board, it makes sense to position your network and security transformation from a strategic viewpoint, emphasising how this will help drive business and growth and other value the business will realise, as well as talking about the simplification, optimisation and improved security SASE will bring.

• SASE brings strategic value, bringing with it scalability and flexibility both in how it is implemented and the features it can bring to optimize business operations and meet business needs in the future.
• SASE implementation can phased – without the need to rip and replace everything. Implementation works alongside your business’ immediate needs and can take just a few months, or years depending on your requirements.
• Mitigating security risks to the business – as mentioned, this is a key concern for the board. Through simplifying protection, unifying security policies and facilitating easier auditing, SASE reduces complexity and cost in managing security. The Zero-Trust approach ensures that policies are delivered consistently across the entire business network and help the organisation to meet regulatory compliance requirements.
• Consolidating a complex security and network environment – managing point solutions increases complexity for IT teams. SASE is a more effective and efficient solution, as it provides a holistic approach, providing intelligence and increased visibility across both networking and security.
• Reducing costs to the business through operational efficiencies. SASE reduces costs through consolidating systems and retiring inefficient and expensive point solutions that are hard to manage. It helps reduce operational costs by freeing up the time of the IT team, who would normally be supporting these systems to work on other more strategic revenue-generating projects.

Justifying SASE to the board means more than listing the technical benefits but needs to approach how it will bring benefits to both IT operations and the business as a whole, by focusing on the business strategy, mitigating risks to the business and how it can improve both IT and business performance.

For further guidance, read our “SASE Products and Projects – A Guide to Planning and Execution”