Elly Yates-Roberts |
Security is of paramount importance to Franke. The Switzerland-based manufacturer produces smart systems and appliances for residential kitchens, professional food services, and coffee preparation, and has more than 60 subsidiaries in about 40 countries.
Alongside its hardware, Franke provides digital services that share real-time data across sites, giving customers access to information in one central location. However, by offering these connected services, Franke needed to consider security threats.
Chief information security officer Victor Andreu wanted to enhance the organisation’s threat detection capabilities, making it more proficient at detecting and responding. “My strategic objective is to safeguard Franke’s assets and reputation by remaining agile and supporting the business,” he says.
To do this, Andreu knew he needed to collaborate with a managed detection and response (MDR) service provider. “We wanted a vendor who could adapt to our needs, operate on a 24/7 basis, and keep our logs and our data in our Franke environment,” he says. “Ontinue provided everything we were looking for.”
Andreu had three main goals when it came to Franke’s detection and response strategy: add more professional rigour and proficiency to detecting and responding to cyberthreats; create a 24/7 professional security operations centre (SOC); and strive for actionable threat intelligence so the Franke team could act quickly on potential threats. However, Andreu knew building an SOC competency internally would be much more challenging – and costly.
Franke was already a customer of Ontinue’s parent company, Open Systems, using its SASE solution for cloud-based secure access service edge (SASE) capabilities to protect its network. Andreu believed that adding Ontinue for MDR would provide added benefits as it could leverage the existing infrastructure and integrate seamlessly. “We saw that there were very good synergies for us to have the MDR and SASE services under the same service provider,” he says. “This was fundamental for us.”
Franke’s existing ecosystem is based on Microsoft technology. “It was extremely important that there was a close partnership between our MDR service and Microsoft – and Ontinue provided the Microsoft know-how,” says Andreu. “Franke is a Microsoft shop and Ontinue has deep expertise with Microsoft. We now get more value from the Microsoft tools we have in place.”
The combination of Franke’s existing infrastructure combined with Microsoft security technology allows the Ontinue SOC to provide alerts and qualified outcomes. Franke gets actionable feedback that its team can ingest into its processes and procedures, improving the risk posture over time. Franke’s security specialists can then focus on protecting their business, users, and applications.
“With Ontinue, we are now better equipped to respond to incidents in a systematic, consistent and professional manner,” says Andreu.
Time is a critical factor when responding to a cyberthreat, and Andreu noted how working with Ontinue has enabled Franke to increase the speed of response to threats significantly.
“Franke has established best-in-class and faster incident response because they’ve connected the managed service to the individuals who are responsible for responding to the incidents,” he says. “Ontinue has delivered on its promise and has helped us to remain agile and enhance our existing protection against key risks.”
The result? Andreu says the organisation has greatly improved its security posture.
“I can say I sleep better at night,” he says. “Today, we have a more professional service, with 24/7 support and faster decision-making thanks to the threat intelligence we are getting from Ontinue.”
While it was important that the chosen vendor could solve Franke’s problems, Andreu also wanted to work with a partner that could take a collaborative approach. Reflecting on the partnership, he highlights the value of the open discussions that occurred between the two companies and praised the learning mindset that everyone demonstrated throughout the process. “We both want to improve and make the service better,” says Andreu. “There’s a spirit of partnership and collaboration that we highly appreciate.”
“If you want to work with a partner, instead of just a vendor, and if you want to build collaboration, a fast MDR service, you can’t go wrong by working with Ontinue. I would strongly recommend them.”
This article was originally published in the Spring 2023 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.