Forrester: 3 Takeaways on the ROI of Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation

‍Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) delivers proven, quantifiable cybersecurity ROI. When Illumio commissioned Forrester Consulting to perform a study on the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of Illumio ZTS, this fact was only further cemented. This study further here validated the significant ROI that Illumio customers experience.

In a recent webinar, Illumio Senior Systems Engineer Paul Dant teamed up with Forrester experts, including Senior Analyst David Holmes, Principal Consultant Henry Huang, and Senior Consultant Nick Ferrif, to break down the report’s metrics and methodology.

Here are 3 takeaways from their discussion.

1. Why Zero Trust Segmentation, and why now?

Forrester’s David Holmes highlighted the prevalence of breaches in the modern cybersecurity landscape. Forrester’s report from December 2022 found that 74 percent of firms responding reported they had been breached in the last 12 months which represented a continuation of rising trends in breach frequency.

“That’s a shocking amount,” Holmes said. “And the numbers have been steadily worsening since all the way back in 2019. It’s gone from 5, to 6, to more than 6 out of 10. All of those would win you an election.”

He went on to explain: “74 percent is just terrible. What we have been doing from a network security perspective is just not working. Unless you are in the top 20% or so from a cybersecurity maturity or efficacy standpoint, you’re probably going to be breached.”

In a threat landscape where breaches are inevitable, Holmes recommends breach containment strategies like microsegmentation in addition to traditional prevention and detection tools.

“If you’re thinking about why we need to be doing microsegmentation, this is it,” said Holmes. If you’re asking why we need to do Zero Trust, this is it. What we have been doing before simple hasn’t been working.”

Providing Illumio’s perspective on this rise in breaches was Paul Dant. ZTS with Illumio is all about providing the solutions Holmes outlined in a way that’s centered around maximizing customer ROI and benefit.

“If we look at Zero Trust Segmentation as a journey, one of the most important aspects is that our customers begin to see value, in this case risk reduction, at the very start of this journey,” he said.

2. Traditional segmentation methods aren’t working

Forrester’s Nick Ferrif discussed the ins and outs of the TEI report itself. Nick explained that the TEI is a proven research methodology that Forrester has been using to justify technology investments.

“The one thing that really sets TEI apart is that we build our analyses based on data collected from real customers who have practical experience using the solution,” said Ferrif. So in this case, real Illumio customers is how we got the data for this analysis.”

Forrester collected a good breadth of data from organizations ranging significantly in sizes and use cases. To better contextualize the TEI’s findings, Forrester looked at the challenges companies were facing.

“Traditional segmentation methods just weren’t getting it done for these organizations,” said Ferrif. “They were spending a lot of money on physical or virtual hardware, a lot of time on labor, and they still weren’t achieving acceptable results when it came to visibility, segmenting, or controlling network traffic.

Dant agreed that many of Illumio’s customers tend to see these exact challenges.

“We know that traditional segmentation methods using VLANS, Access Control Lists, and trying to segment using physical networks can be very difficult and time consuming – and lack of visibility is something most organizations suffer from. The type of visibility that Illumio is providing is typically something that organizations have not seen before,” explained Dant.

Read customer highlights from the TEI of Illumio ZTS report.

3. Illumio ZTS delivers 111% ROI

Forrester’s Henry Huang detailed the benefits Illumio’s customers saw once they implemented Illumio ZTS.

The report’s findings represent a multitude of tangible proven benefits that customers experience with Illumio:

• 111% ROI over 3 years with a payback after 6 months
• 90% reduction in time to implement segmentation resulting in $1.6 million savings in average 3-year present value
• 66% reduction in breach blast radius by restricting lateral movement, resulting in $1.8 million savings over 3 years
• 90% reduced unplanned outages, resulting in $3.8 million savings over 3 years
• $1.5 million recaptured in legacy firewall deployment and associated year 1 maintenance costs

Huang also pointed out a number of intangible benefits, including the ways Illumio helps customers meet compliance and insurance requirements in addition to bringing significant institutional knowledge to customers.

The webinar uncovered one more significant takeaway on Illumio ZTS: the platform’s flexibility. Illumio ZTS can work for organizations of any size – from small to midsize businesses all the way to large enterprises.

“There’s a lot of great metrics that we’ve given today,” said Huang. “Different metrics matter to different groups and organizations. Go through the report yourself and decide what matters the most.”

The webinar uncovered one more significant takeaway on Illumio ZTS: the platform’s flexibility. Illumio ZTS can work for organizations of any size – from small to midsize businesses all the way to large enterprises.

“There’s a lot of great metrics that we’ve given today,” said Huang. “Different metrics matter to different groups and organizations. Go through the report yourself and decide what matters the most.”

Want to learn more?

• Watch the full webinar, and read the report
• Calculate your own organization’s ROI with Illumio ZTS using the Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation ROI Calculator to create a custom report that can better inform your potential investment in Illumio‍
• Contact us today for a free consultation and demo