• Bringing core security controls into one cloud-delivered platform simplifies operations, strengthens protection, and reinforces consistency across users, data, and applications.
• KuppingerCole’s Buyer’s Compass provides a structured, analyst-backed framework to help you evaluate SSE offerings and make a confident decision.
• SSE can deliver real, measurable outcomes—as seen in Forrester Consulting’s Total Economic Impact™ study of Symantec SSE.

Digital transformation has fundamentally changed the way organizations operate. The enterprise is more flexible and distributed than ever, yet many security strategies are still relying on a slew of siloed tools for network protection. The result? Fragmented visibility, duplicated effort, controls that don’t extend to where work actually happens—and a nagging feeling that there has to be a better way.

KuppingerCole has stepped in to show that there is, with a go-to guide for navigating the SSE buying process. The renowned global analyst firm recognizes that adopting SSE isn’t just an architectural shift—but an opportunity to replace fragmented tools with a unified, cloud-delivered solution that simplifies management and strengthens protection. KuppingerCole’s Buyer’s Compass helps you cut through the complexity with a structured framework for comparing approaches and choosing the solution that best aligns with your long-term security goals. 

This blog serves as a preview into that process, starting with:

Focus on your primary use cases

With users, applications, and data distributed across environments, the traditional perimeter model no longer applies. The first step to evaluate an SSE solution is to understand how and where your organization works today—and which challenges need solving first. Organizations today are looking for a solution that secures remote work, delivers cloud access control, protects data, and enhances security.

These challenges reflect the reality that applications and users are everywhere. SSE meets this environment with cloud-delivered controls that apply policies consistently across every access point.

Understand the core functions you need from SSE

SSE brings together security functions that have been traditionally siloed. At the time, each defense layer may have been the best solution. But now, SSE provides a single, cloud-delivered solution for secure access to the web, cloud services, and private applications. 

Your SSE should deliver these key security capabilities:

• Policy-Based Access Controls for enforcing consistent security policies.
• Secure Web Gateway (SWG) for web threat protection.
• Deep Content Inspection to inspect suspicious files and content for malware.
• Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) for visibility and control over cloud apps.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) to safeguard sensitive information.
• Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) for secure user access to corporate resources.
• Network threat protection for applications and services.
• Security Posture checks to continuously assess the effectiveness of controls.
• Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) to shield users from malicious or unknown web and email content.

SSE unifies how these functions are delivered and managed. Instead of operating each as a separate product with its own configuration, policies, and workflows, it consolidates operations and access. 

Evaluate how well platforms integrate with your environment

Once you understand what SSE brings together, the next step is to evaluate how well each platform fits into the environment you already have. Tool consolidation means nothing if your protections don’t work consistently and seamlessly where your users, data, and applications operate. Consider:

• Consistent policies across services. Controls should apply uniformly, regardless of how, when, where, or what a user accesses.
• Accounting for a multitude of endpoints. Look for coverage that reflects today’s sprawling endpoints and diverse ways of working.
• A system built on Zero Trust principles. The platform should continuously authenticate and authorize users based on their identity, device, and context.
• Ease of integration with preexisting tools and environments. You want simple-to-implement integrations with zero gaps in your system.
• Long-term security goals. Ensure your platform has the APIs, partnerships, and/or API-level connectors with third-party services that align with your goals to modernize and scale.

Support your decision with a clear business case

When investing in a new platform, stakeholders need real, measurable value. You can easily build a strong business case for SSE with key metrics, such as the ones Forrester used in its recent Total Economic Impact™ of Symantec Security Edge (SSE), a study commissioned by Broadcom. 

In three years, a composite organization experienced benefits you’ll want to see in your own organization: 

• Reduced downtime and service disruptions: Up to 14 hours of unplanned downtime avoided per year.
• Lower likelihood and impact of security incidents: A 75% reduced risk of a severe external breach.
• Cost savings from retiring legacy tools: $8.4 million saved in legacy infrastructure costs.
• Time savings and networking teams: Up to a 15% lift in SecOps productivity.
• Productivity improvements for end users: $5.1 million in cost savings for end users.

Connecting platform capabilities to tangible organizational outcomes strengthens alignment and accelerates decision-making.

Choose with confidence

Independent validation matters—especially when you’re making critical decisions to reshape your security strategy. KuppingerCole leverages its expert perspective to help organizations confidently identify and build a strong business case for network protection solutions that support a stronger security posture, like Symantec SSE.

These are just a few of the Symantec’s standout features the Buyer’s Compass spotlights:

• Complete visibility into all traffic, including SSL/TLS decryption.
• A flexible, non-intrusive proxy-based SWG architecture that supports multiple enforcement actions.
• Integration with the Symantec Global Intelligence Network, one of the largest civilian security threat intel networks in the world.
• Multi-layered threat analysis for any deployment model, working in tandem with cloud security.
• Global cloud-native performance utilizing Google’s backbone.
• Full hybrid support for both cloud and on-premises environments, enabling flexibility across organizational use cases.
• Simplified deployment and operation with the use of a single agent for core capabilities .

KuppingerCole has marked Symantec as a comprehensive SSE provider for its “wide range of features, covering all major areas of SSE in breadth and depth.” Backed by Symantec SSE’s measured value from real customer experiences in Forrester’s TEI study—we have the numbers to prove that we’re tried, trusted, and true. It’s no wonder our best-in-breed network security capabilities are trusted to secure the world’s most targeted organizations as they navigate digital transformation. 

The KuppingerCole Buyer’s Compass for Security Service Edge offers the practical edge you need to evaluate platforms, make your case for SSE, and come out strong. 

Ready to make your move? Get the full guide here.