Bureau Veritas Boosts SaaS Security, Performance, and Efficiency for 84,000 Users Worldwide

Security and efficiency were key concerns in this environment. Employees around the world need secure access to business-critical software as a service (SaaS) systems from both company and client locations. And because Bureau Veritas’ legacy connectivity solution had data centers in only 42 countries, users often experienced lagging performance.

IT launched a project to rationalize and standardize solutions across the infrastructure, including replacing cloud security. “We wanted a partner for accessing SaaS solutions that could expand to an SSE [security service edge] project,” says Vincent Bel, Director of Security Operations for Bureau Veritas.

Potential partners needed to have a dedicated infrastructure in China. Bureau Veritas also wanted a pure-SaaS solution that would not demand much effort from IT.

Networking and Security staff collaborated throughout the decision process. “From the start of the RFP [request for proposal], we checked at every milestone to be sure Networking and Security were aligned,” says Bel. “We wanted to be certain that the solution we chose would work for the whole ecosystem.”

Netskope’s Proactive Digital Experience Management (DEM) capabilities from Netskope One DEM provide detailed metrics and a “hop-by-hop” view of individual users’ connections to applications and data sources. Bureau Veritas users indicate that the combination of DEM and the Netskope NewEdge Network have substantially improved performance for their cloud applications, even those in remote sites across the globe, including China.

“People tell me that the infrastructure works much better than before, and now they can get their work done,” says Bel. “Many of our internal applications are hosted in Europe, the U.S., and Australia, so in particular we’ve seen our China-based users—whose traffic needs to traverse the Great Firewall to reach them—report that Netskope has made it much easier to go through this electronic frontier and access their applications and do their jobs.

“With Netskope, security switched from being a disabler for our business to being an enabler of the business,” he adds. “That’s at the core of what we want to do. It essentially gives us the best of both worlds: security and performance.”

Next, Bureau Veritas plans to roll out zero trust network access (ZTNA) and biometrics-based single sign-on capabilities by moving to Netskope One Private Access. This will enable acquisitions to operate securely within Bureau Veritas while retaining some autonomy.

“Without Netskope, we would face substantial security risks,” says Bel. “If we had 84,000 people accessing the whole internet, the problems would keep the IT team busy full-time.” Instead, SSE is keeping users safe. “Top management is saying the security layer we deployed is actually improving their lives. They’re happy, so I’m happy.”