Prioritising network performance and security among driving factors for UK SASE adoption

Xalient has released its UK research report: Why SASE is the Blueprint for Future-Proofing Your Network in 2025 and Beyond. The study found that a staggering 99% of UK respondents have experienced a security attack in the last 12 months. The research, which was conducted by independent market research company Opinion Matters, surveyed 250 IT, network and security leaders from organisations with 2000+ employees from the UK. It finds that organisations are struggling to keep up with the evolving threat landscape and this is a primary driver for Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) adoption. 

On the back of this, a key challenge for 40% of organisations is the difficulty in delivering consistent performance and enforcing policies, as they must lock down so much of their network. 

Organisational challenges

According to the report, 85% of UK organisations surveyed admitted that new cybersecurity threats are taking advantage of gaps in their network, while 42% agree that they struggle to detect threats and protect against ransomware; a slightly higher trend than the 38% response within the global SASE report. Adding to this, 79% of organisations surveyed said that recruiting and retaining the specialist security skills they need to protect their organisation from new and growing threats is a key challenge and top of mind.

These organisational challenges amongst others, are fuelling SASE adoption.

The driving factors behind SASE implementation   

Any investment in technology must deliver a valuable return. In the case of SASE adoption, respondents largely agreed that the three main business drivers for moving to a SASE solution were the rising costs of traditional network architecture (14%), a desire to move away from the use of legacy VPNs (14%) and addressing performance issues with business-critical SaaS apps (14%).

This differs slightly from global respondents, who rated securing remote access (14%) higher than the UK (8%): indicating the costs of traditional networking architecture and legacy systems and infrastructure are more of an issue in the UK than in other regions. 

The benefits of SASE adoption 

There was a wide range of cited benefits of SASE adoption in the UK, with the top benefit being the improved performance of business-critical SaaS apps (35%), which aligned to the primary business motivator pushing organisations toward the SASE path. This was followed by secure remote access which was listed as the second highest benefit following adoption (30%).  

Single vendor vs multi-vendor SASE 

According to the research findings, 50% of UK organisations had adopted a single-vendor SASE solution, while 42% had gone down the multi-vendor SASE route. However, as was witnessed in the global report, closer examination of the UK’s key SASE vendor selection criteria reveals a level of confusion around the benefits organisations think they will derive from each SASE model.  

Whilst organisations list the top three benefits of a single vendor to be having more tightly integrated components (30%), simplified deployment, management and operations (29%), and being provided with more economies of scale (27%); they detail the challenges with this approach to include: difficulty obtaining the control they need (27%), correctly getting the required security controls (29%), and vendor lock-in (25%). 

On the other hand, the respondents utilising multi-vendor solutions cited benefits as better security controls (31%), more flexibility to introduce different vendors on a best-of-breed basis (27%), and the ability to still achieve single-vendor level integration (27%), but there were concerns around pricing which wasn’t always clear (26%), with many admitting they would need a partner to help them manage multi-vendor SASE solutions (27%).  

“It is great to see within this research that UK companies are seeing value from their SASE solution, whether they opted for a single vendor or multi-vendor solution,” said Stephen Amstutz, Director of Innovation at Xalient.

“However, as SASE covers both network and security, it can be a challenge to select the right model for the organisation, and to balance both networking and security requirements, particularly for resource-stretched teams,” adds Amstutz. “To help overcome this, a good MSP can ease the selection process and ensure that organisations implement and continue to manage the right SASE solution for their business.” 

Regardless of the approach, SASE adoption will continue to grow as organisations look for ways to close the security gaps that new and evolving threats present to the network – and make the network more resilient and performant to deliver a better user experience.