Cyber security: selling to small and medium-sized businesses (volume II)

09 April 2021 | Research

Perspective | PDF (15 pages) | Cyber Security

Welcome to our second collection of articles looking at security, with particular focus on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market (that is, firms with up to 1000 employees).

We believe that SMBs occupy an exciting area of the cyber-security space; indeed, such organisations are increasingly aware of the risks that they face if they are not adequately protected against cyber threats. Also, this segment of the market is rapidly growing; we forecast that SMBs' spend on cyber security worldwide will grow from USD57 billion in 2020 to USD90 billion in 2025.

The articles featured in this brochure give a flavour of our cyber-security research. They cover the following topics.

COVID-19-related remote working is driving growth in SMBs’ use of and spending on cyber-security solutions. This article discusses our recently updated business cyber-security market forecasts, including the expected changes in the importance of different routes to market.
Vendors of cyber-security solutions need to change their approach to benefit from the operator channel. In this article, we talk about what operators that sell cybersecurity services to SMBs expect from their vendor partners, and how these partners could make themselves more attractive for co-operation.
Telecoms operators rated Fortinet as the best security vendor for the SMB market. We surveyed 34 operators worldwide in 2H 2020 and asked them about their security strategies and vendor partners for the SMB market. This article explores operators’ plans in this field, as well as their assessments of different vendors’ strengths and weaknesses.
Palo Alto Networks is emerging as the lead vendor in the competitive network security market. This article discusses the trends in the financial and operational metrics of four market-leading vendors that are mainly focused on providing network security solutions (Check Point, Cisco, Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks).
Business survey 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate the cyber-security spend of SMBs in the USA. We surveyed 400 SMBs in the USA in April and May 2020 to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect (and is affecting) their demand for IT services. This article, which is based on results from this survey, examines the pandemic’s impact on SMBs’ adoption of cyber-security solutions and their related plans.