How to Buy Unified Threat Management (UTM) Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Unified Threat Management (UTM) Software
If an organization is just starting and looking to purchase UTM software, G2 can help.
The manual work necessary in security and compliance causes multiple pain points. If the company is large and has a lot of networks, data, or devices in its organization, it may need to shop for scalable UTM solutions. Users should think about the pain points in security to help create a checklist of criteria. Additionally, the buyer must determine the number of employees who will need to use this software and if they currently have the skills to administer it.
Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team springboard into creating a checklist of criteria. The checklist serves as a detailed guide that includes both necessary and nice-to-have features, including budget features, number of users, integrations, security staff skills, cloud or on-premises solutions, and more.
Depending on the deployment scope, producing an RFI, a one-page list with bullet points describing what is needed from UTM software, might be helpful.
Compare Unified Threat Management (UTM) Software Products
Create a long list
Vendor evaluations are essential to the software buying process, from meeting the business functionality needs to implementation. For ease of comparison, after all demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor.
Create a short list
From the long list of vendors, it is helpful to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various solutions.
Conduct demos
To ensure the comparison is comprehensive, the user should demo each solution on the short list with the same use cases. This allows the business to evaluate like for like and see how each vendor stacks up against the competition.
Selection of Unified Threat Management (UTM) Software
Choose a selection team
Before getting started, creating a winning team that will work together throughout the process, from identifying pain points to implementation, is crucial. The selection team should consist of organization members with the right interest, skills, and time to participate.
A good starting point is to aim for three to five people who fill roles such as main decision maker, project manager, process owner, system owner, or staffing subject matter expert, as well as a technical lead, head administrator, or security administrator. The vendor selection team may be smaller in smaller companies, with fewer participants multitasking and taking on more responsibilities.
Compare notes
The selection team should compare notes, facts, and figures noted during the process, such as costs, security capabilities, and alert and incident response times.
Negotiation
Just because something is written on a company’s pricing page does not mean it's final. It is crucial to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or for recommending the product to others.
Final decision
After this stage, and before going all in, it is recommended to roll out a test run or pilot program to test adoption with a small sample size of users. If the tool is well used and well received, the buyer can be confident that the selection was correct. If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
What Does Unified Threat Management (UTM) Software Cost?
UTM is considered a long-term investment. This means there must be a careful evaluation of vendors, and the software should be tailored to each organization's specific requirements. Once UTM software is purchased, deployed, and integrated into an organization’s security system, the cost could be high, so the evaluation stage of selecting the right tool is crucial.
The notion of rip-and-replace cost can be high. The chosen UTM vendor should continue to provide support for the platform with flexibility and open integration. Pricing can be pay-as-you-go, and costs may also vary depending if unified threat management is self-managed or fully managed.
Return on Investment (ROI)
As organizations consider recouping the money spent on the software, it is critical to understand the costs that will be saved in terms of efficiency. In the long run, the investment must be worth preventing downtime, loss of revenue, and any reputation damage that a security breach would cause.
