SASE organisation Cato Networks has announced that Element Solutions Inc (ESI), the $2.3 billion provider of specialty chemical services, has adopted the Cato SASE Cloud Platform for its global network. With Cato, ESI onboards newly acquired companies quickly, in weeks not months. Overall, ESI indicated that the time to complete the integration work in a corporate acquisition has decreased by 80% since adopting the Cato SASE Cloud Platform.
Dustin Collins, Global CIO of ESI, said: “We started with Cato looking to shorten the time needed to complete the integration of acquisitions and improve our security. We ended up finding a true partner who helped us reimagine how IT can serve the business. We achieved both of our initial aims—and a lot more.”
Alon Alter, Chief Business Officer of Cato Networks, said: “Every day, we talk to business and IT executives who are frustrated with the slow pace of expanding their legacy network, Whether it’s waiting months for hardware deliveries or trying to connect remote locations and workers, companies lose opportunities due to the lack of agility. Cato was purpose-built to provide more agility to businesses through our cloud- delivered services. Rather than inhibit the business, as legacy systems do, Cato’s converged networking and security are a collaborator that enables the business.”
When it came to problems facing ESI before they adopted the Cato SASE Cloud Platform, legacy networks were the biggest hinderance. ESI’s legacy dates back more than 200 years with roots in metal finishing. Today, the company operates 117 locations across 50+ countries and 6,000+ remote workers. ESI replaced the SD-WAN appliances connecting sites and VPN servers connecting remote users with the Cato SASE Cloud Platform.
Highlights from the deployment include:
- Reduced M&A Time to Value: “Before Cato, we needed three to four months just to spin up network capacity and get a location online. With Cato, we can bring up a new network site in weeks, not months. That’s real value for our company and our shareholders,” said Collins.
- Overcoming IT Skills Shortage: “Cato is so easy for our team to use that we’ve been able to remove the ‘grunt work’ often associated with IT and instead focus our efforts on better serving the business. We no longer need to hire tech specialists to run our network or network security infrastructure. Now we focus our recruiting on more scalable IT generalists who can bring more value and innovation to the business,” said Collins.
- Improved the Security Posture: “We’ve been able to add layers of security for all users that would have been more challenging to deploy in the past—services such as advanced anti-malware, NGFW, SWG, and threat prevention (IPS). It’s not that those technologies weren’t in place before. They were. But Cato simplifies how they are delivered, and that makes all the difference,” says James Schnoebelen, Global CISO at ESI.
Additionally, a simplified user experience was praised by ESI: “Using the old VPN was confusing because it was inconsistent in terms of being on the road versus in the office. People had problems even just connecting. Now our users complain less because the network access is seamless.”
Cato Networks also publicly work with other large brands, including Porsche.
