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Case Study

BDO Brings Together Networking and Security to Protect a Cloud-First, AI-Friendly Infrastructure

BDO, a global consulting and accounting firm, modernized its network and security stack to support a cloud-first, AI-enabled future. Facing limited visibility, a complex multi-vendor environment, and unreliable VPN infrastructure, BDO deployed Netskope One—including CASB, Next-Gen SWG, and Private Access—to consolidate security, strengthen data protection, and improve performance.

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Case Studies ,  Cloud Access Security Broker ,  Cloud Security ,  Data Protection ,  Data Security ,  Generative AI ,  Hybrid Work ,  NewEdge Network ,  Private Access ,  SASE ,  Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ,  Security Service Edge (SSE) ,  Service Companies ,  Simplify Operations ,  SkopeAI ,  SSE ,  Threat Intelligence ,  Threat Protection ,  Zero Trust ,  Zero Trust Engine Show more
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Deutsch,  English,  Español,  Français,  Português,  日本語

BDO takes a people-centric approach to business. From employees to clients to local communities, the accounting and professional services firm aims to help people thrive in all corners of the world. Enabling its more than 8,000 employees to fulfill this mission requires a stable, secure, and truly global network.

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Industry
Business Services
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Location
London, UK
Employees
Employees
8,000+
Date Founded icon
Year founded
1963
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Summary

The challenges

01

Secure all applications, data, and users around the world

02

Improve network reliability and performance for remote users

03

Enable knowledge workers to safely experiment with AI and other new technologies

Solutions

Netskope One CASB – With Netskope One CASB, a core component of Netskope One Security Service Edge (SSE), you can confidently adopt cloud applications and services – without sacrificing security.

 

Netskope One Private Access – Private Access (NPA) for Zero Trust Network Access seamlessly connects users anywhere to private resources everywhere.

 

Netskope One Next Gen SWG – The foundation for SSE web and cloud inline security providing threat and data protection.

Solutions

The results

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Visibility

Clear visibility enables better control over applications and data

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Innovation

Automated controls over use of AI, blocking of inappropriate data uploads

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Performance

Improved network reliability and performance for global users

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The Challenge

How can a global consulting firm guide clients safely into the future?

To effectively serve more than 30,000 clients, global accounting and consulting firm BDO requires a secure, highly available network 24×7. “I have people moving all over the world, using cloud services all the time,” says Nik Miller, Partner and Chief Technology Officer for BDO UK. “My fundamental job is to provide seamless, secure access to those services—and to modern platforms that enable us to drive business opportunity.”

 

Key among those platforms is AI, which BDO, as a knowledge business, wants staff to experiment with. “It’s really important for us to introduce technologies that future-proof our business, which currently means making sure we take the right steps with regards to digitalization and AI,” says Stuart Walters, Partner and Chief Information Officer for BDO UK. “We need to enable users to adopt new technologies, while educating them if they take actions that could put the business at risk.

“We are currently allowing people to experiment with AI as much as possible, while making sure that we protect our data from public-facing systems,” he continues. “The business has a future only if we safeguard all our data.”

 

BDO formerly relied on a complex on-premises security and network architecture. The various systems from multiple vendors required manual management and provided limited visibility, creating significant challenges for data security.

BDO is the world’s fifth-largest consultancy, accountancy, and assurance firm. We rely on Netskope to secure operations as we future-proof the business through digitalization of professional services and the introduction of AI.

Stuart Walters, Partner and Chief Information Officer
BDO UK
Stuart Walters, CIO and Partner, BDO UK
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The Solution

Reliable, secure network connectivity with visibility to shadow IT

To improve their line-of-sight to application access by endpoints around the world, the BDO security team rolled out the Netskope One Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB). “We wanted to discover the threat that shadow IT posed across our environment,” Walters says. “Shadow IT springs up as people do their jobs. They may have good business reasons for using the systems, but IT needs visibility.

 

“People who think there is no shadow IT in their organization are ignoring the threat,” he adds. “It makes more sense to embrace reality and find out what’s going on.”

 

Netskope One CASB quickly proved its value to BDO. “Netskope does a really good job on giving us clear visibility into the application stack, even the cloud application stack,” Walters says. “Some of the controls we can now put in place around cloud applications, allowing access to certain features and functionality but not others—based on the data that’s being used in those environments—is really useful.”

When the firm’s remote workforce grew rapidly and its legacy VPN struggled to support them, BDO turned to Netskope again. “Some of our VPN technologies were immature and not as stable as we would have liked,” Walters says. “And our legacy firewalls had become overly complicated. Configuring them and setting up rules created massive overhead for the team—which added risk, as people might miss a vulnerability or potentially misconfigure a security tool.” The firm had transitioned many key applications to the public cloud. “Sending traffic through an on-premises appliance was creating availability problems across many of our platforms.”

 

BDO leveraged the Netskope Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (NG-SWG) and Netskope One Private Access. “Netskope One was already providing us with an excellent CASB, so we leveraged more of its capabilities by moving to Private Access and the SWG,” Miller says. “The move to Netskope has given us seamless, reliable, and secure access for all our users.”

The expansion of NewEdge’s network POPs enables us to ensure that people are getting the same performance no matter where in the world they are. This enables BDO team members around the world to implement AI and other emerging technologies faster—and more securely.

Stuart Walters, Partner and Chief Information Officer
BDO UK
Stuart Walters, CIO and Partner, BDO UK
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The Results

Consolidating technologies—and teams—leads to networking and security success

The Netskope solutions have improved BDO’s visibility to applications and data. Now, Walters says, “we can control the data that our applications are accessing. Granularity and visibility are the real benefits of Netskope.”

 

The rollout of Netskope One has also helped solve the thorny question of how to effectively secure AI tools. “Netskope allows us to control the use of AI whilst not stifling the environment we need,” Miller says. “With Netskope, we can lock down certain areas and prevent users from uploading certain data to AI platforms. So, they can use ChatGPT to help the business operate more efficiently, but they cannot upload proprietary data into ChatGPT.”

 

Ease of management is another key improvement: If his team hadn’t moved to Netskope, Walters says, BDO would have the same security capabilities, but via many different products. “Using the CASB, SWG, and remote access within the Netskope suite simplifies management, which reduces our security risk.”

Network reliability is up as well. “We had frequent outages with our VPN; now we have virtually zero,” Miller says. “Our availability stats have gone through the roof since we’ve had Netskope in place—from around 98.5% to 99.9%.” Network performance has accelerated, as well. “The Netskope NewEdge Network provides global coverage as we do business internationally,” Walters says. “The expansion of NewEdge’s network POPs [points of presence] enables us to ensure that people are getting the same performance no matter where in the world they are.”

 

To build on these benefits, BDO merged its security and networking teams. “The Venn diagram of networking and security has become almost a single circle,” Miller says. “The teams have merged into one vital function that both protects and provides high-performing solutions. We are a consolidated team, with security embedded in everything we do.”

 

Miller concludes that these changes have provided huge benefits to BDO. “The Netskope environment creates less work for my team and happier users. Higher network availability means everybody is under less stress, and our platforms are secure. We are in control of what we can see, and Netskope provides visibility into all the previously frightening unknowns.”

Removing the VPN brought enormous cost savings. We saved all the money we would have had to reinvest in old, antiquated equipment.

Nik Miller, Partner and Chief Technology Officer
BDO UK
Nik Miller, Partner and Chief Technology Officer, BDO UK

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