PERSOL Group Builds a Zero Trust Foundation — Ensuring Security, Peace of Mind, and Convenience for 30,000 Employees Across Japan

“At our company, we encourage employees to proactively choose a work style that fits them best, and remote work has become established since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this also brought new challenges—namely, the limitations of perimeter-based security relying on firewalls, and the growing need to support users’ increasing use of cloud services. In 2020, we began exploring Zero Trust to ensure security regardless of location.”

The first step in the company’s Zero Trust project was to gain buy-in from business divisions. “With Zero Trust, we would be shifting from on-premises proxies to cloud proxies, meaning a major change in our network environment. We needed to explain the significance and process changes to each division,” says Yuki Haneishi, Lead Consultant of the Secure Network Office. He continues, “We also collected requests from the business divisions regarding security and usability. We compiled those, added key priorities for the project, and created a detailed comparison table with about 400 evaluation items.”

The Netskope deployment primarily focused on migrating from the existing proxy. With Netskope’s support, the company implemented risk-mitigation measures such as parallel operation with the legacy proxy and a small-scale phased rollout, achieving a smooth transition with zero downtime.

Naoto Okawa, Senior Consultant of the Secure Network Office, recalls, “We built a Netskope portal, developed usage guidelines and Q&A documents, and held study sessions for security staff at group companies to explore how to leverage Netskope effectively together.”

Along with improved usability, operational workloads were also reduced. “Because control is possible at the operation level, users can access necessary cloud services instantly without extra effort. Meanwhile, the IT and security departments have significantly reduced workloads related to security reviews,” Haneishi adds.

From a security standpoint, Okawa highlights the importance of leveraging the cloud firewall. “Netskope allows unified management of all internet-bound communications—not only through browsers but also all traffic from PCs accessing the internet. By September 2025, all 30,000 domestic group employees using Netskope will be fully covered.”

Looking ahead, Ida says, “With this project, we’ve built a Zero Trust foundation that supports our group’s businesses. The key is that all internet-bound communications are centralized and visible in logs, allowing us to develop various initiatives. Going forward, we look forward to leveraging Netskope’s AI capabilities, such as UEBA (User and Entity Behavior Analytics), which detects behavioral anomalies through machine learning.”

Guided by the vision of “Work and Smile,” PERSOL Group’s Zero Trust foundation built on Netskope continues to support both the group’s growth and its mission to help solve social challenges.