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What Is the Total Economic Impact of Unified Security Management?

A unified security management (USM) solution can help MSSPs improve threat detection, lower incident response time, reduce risk and simplify meeting compliance standards, according to a Forrester study of the AlienVault USM Anywhere platform.

Key findings from the Forrester study included:

  • USM drives employee productivity. USM Anywhere enabled security operations teams to monitor and detect issues in real-time, which reduced the manual effort involved in investigative activities by 80 percent.
  • USM helps reduce data breach costs. USM Anywhere improves threat detection and incident response time by 80 percent and helps reduce the costs of data breaches and other incidents.
  • USM improves compliance reporting. USM Anywhere compliance reporting resulted in nearly 6,000 hours of time savings each year.

USM Anywhere deployment delivered a six-times return on investment (ROI), Forrester noted. In addition, the net present value (NPV) of USM Anywhere totaled more than $1.1 million.

Benefits of USM Anywhere for MSSPs

Forrester indicated USM Anywhere offers the following benefits for MSSPs:

  • Faster Time to Profit: USM Anywhere annual subscription costs range from $65,000 to $80,000, and implementation and training costs total approximately $7,000. However, adoption of USM Anywhere shortens the time it takes for MSSPs to break even on their initial investment and resource costs.
  • Increased Emphasis on Customer Needs and Innovation: USM Anywhere integration and setup generally can be done in less than a day. This ensures MSSPs can avoid committing significant time and resources to USM Anywhere implementation and setup, and instead, focus on innovation in key service and solution areas.
  • Improved Audits: USM Anywhere offers real-time reports that can be emailed directly to auditors. By doing so, USM Anywhere helps MSSPs reduce the time it takes to complete audits.
  • Flexible Pricing: USM Anywhere uses a "pay-as-you-grow" subscription-based pricing model. This enables MSSPs to minimize their upfront costs and grow with their customer base.

USM Anywhere allows MSSPs to maintain compliance to drive business growth, reduce cybersecurity risk and become more efficient, Forrester stated. The platform also provides MSSPs with automated threat detection and response, Forrester said, and visibility into everything connected to networks and cloud environments.

What Is USM Anywhere?

USM Anywhere is a cloud-based security monitoring platform that delivers threat detection, incident response and compliance management across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments.

Key features of USM Anywhere include:

  • Asset discovery.
  • Behavioral monitoring.
  • Intrusion detection.
  • Security information and event management (SIEM) and log monitoring.
  • Vulnerability management.

Furthermore, USM Anywhere has helped AlienVault extend its channel reach.

AlienVault recorded 130 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth of USM Anywhere in 2017, according to a prepared statement. The company also reported more than 50 percent year-over-year revenue growth, increased its install base to over 7,000 businesses and added over 200 MSSP partners last year.

Dan Kobialka

Dan Kobialka is senior contributing editor, MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E. He covers IT security, IT service provider business strategies and partner programs. Dan holds a M.A. in Print and Multimedia Journalism from Emerson College and a B.A. in English from Bridgewater State University. In his free time, Dan enjoys jogging, traveling, playing sports, touring breweries and watching football.