This summer, IBM Security commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic ImpactTM (TEI) assessment of IBM Security Guardium. Forrester’s consultants met with a long-time Guardium customer to determine their reasons for deploying Guardium, calculate the value the solution has provided to the client, and extrapolate from that the total economic impact that their Guardium investment has provided them. The participating firm was a US-based energy and utilities company with approximate $22 billion in annual revenue that currently has deployed Guardium across approximately 200 servers.
One of the benefits of the TEI is its breadth of coverage: not only does the study measure IT costs and cost savings, but it captures user efficiency and business effectiveness, risk mitigation, opportunity cost, and other strategic impacts as well. The completed Total Economic Impact study was published this month, and its conclusions are exciting for the participating client, existing Guardium customers, and those considering a data security investment. Among other key findings, the study concluded that IBM Security Guardium can provide clients with a 401% return on investment and a net present value of $4.0 million over 3 years.
How IBM Security Guardium creates value for customers
The client cited several drivers for adopting Guardium Data Protection. Before Guardium, they had a decentralized data security strategy, relying on each data source owner to maintain and secure their environments independently. You can imagine the kinds of vulnerabilities that approach could create or how it could be an impediment to responding to threats quickly and effectively. As a consequence, users resorted to manual processes to secure their data and address compliance with regulations.
Deploying IBM Security Guardium, in particular Guardium Data Protection, allowed the client centralize data protection under a unified solution, proving consistent visibility into their storage environments and centralized control of user access. With Guardium Data Protection, the client was able to automate many of their previously manual security and compliance processes, reducing the time and headcount required to achieve the same desired security outcomes. In this way, the client was able to save approximately 1,000 hours of staff time annually. These efficiencies translate to $822,000 saved over three years.
Similarly, with help from IBM Security Guardium’s pre-built compliance templates and granular visibility into where regulated data is stored, the client’s ability to meet compliance regulations was augmented greatly. The report concludes that these capabilities facilitate the process of addressing compliance, saving the organization $1.1M, while lowering the probability that the client would experience a regulatory fine by 2%.
More in store: TEI calculator and webcast coming soon!
These results are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg interactive calculator that assesses the Total Economic Impact that IBM Security Guardium could provide their organization – with results that are tailor-made for their specific data security environment. In December, we’ll be hosting a webinar featuring the Forrester consultant who developed this study. We also have a new blog on Security Intelligence covering this study. Stay tuned to the community page for future updates later this quarter!
In the interim, I encourage you to take advantage of the research that is already available. To obtain more information surrounding the costs of deployment, the additional economic benefits which offset them, and the unquantifiable benefits provided by IBM Security Guardium, click here to read the study yourself.
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