Digital certificates are key to modern web security, and automating their deployment and renewals can greatly enhance their potential. A recent Forrester study commissioned by Sectigo reveals that automating certificate lifecycle management (CLM) with Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) delivers a 243% return on investment (ROI). This evidence shows the financial benefits of CLM automation, making it a smart decision for businesses navigating current digital certificate management challenges.

It’s no secret that digital certificates are a cornerstone of modern web security. It’s also increasingly evident that certificates are better poised to meet their full potential if their deployment and renewals are automated.

Less obvious, however, is the long-term financial impact of an automated CLM — many potential adopters suspect that they will benefit, but may still be reluctant to make upfront investments if they lack quantifiable evidence of the end result.

Thankfully, such evidence is now readily available. Sectigo commissioned the respected research and advisory company Forrester to provide in-depth insight into the economic realities of using a certificate lifecycle management (CLM) platform — and specifically, Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM).

After conducting a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, Forrester revealed an astounding return on investment: 243 percent. This is just one of many metrics indicating that the decision to adopt SCM is financially prudent.

Below, we will break down Forrester’s most significant findings to demonstrate how the Sectigo Certificate Manager platform provides such an impressive ROI and why this is relevant given the current challenges surrounding digital certificate management.

Managing the growing complexity of certificate management

Forrester’s TEI study provides much-needed clarification in an era of growing digital certificate complications. Forming the basis of digital trust, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) / Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates verify the identities of users and servers while also encrypting sensitive data to limit the potential for interception.

Managing SSL certificates has always been complicated, as these must be carefully followed through each phase of the certificate lifecycle: discovery, request, issuance, monitoring, and renewal.

As digital operations and transactions expand, enterprises need to handle an ever-increasing array of digital certificates — and few can keep up with such demands through manual strategies alone.

These concerns are expected to further escalate as certificate lifecycles shrink. Google has made it abundantly clear that certificate periods will soon span a mere 90 days, forcing businesses to pick up the pace and renew digital certificates far more frequently. This should not be a problem for those already using a strong CLM solution, but any existing delays will almost certainly be exacerbated once 90-day validity periods take over.

The critical need for automated certificate management

Today’s overburdened IT departments can only handle so much, and, if saddled with never-ending certificate lifecycle tasks, IT experts cannot properly focus on other urgent security concerns.

This is where automated solutions come into play: capable of streamlining many digital certificate processes, these solutions optimize and expedite everything from issuance to deployment while also carefully tracking upcoming expiration, sending notifications, and proactively renewing certificates as needed.

The alternative is sticking with the status quo of manual certificate management, which at this point, is far too risky: if IT professionals are unable to keep up (or if they make seemingly minor mistakes), expired certificates are possible. These outages can be devastating and costly, leaving data vulnerable and even causing credibility to suffer.

When scalable solutions are required, there is simply no substitution for automated certificate management. The cost of outages (and ensuing downtime) is far too high to risk.

Why choose Sectigo Certificate Manager?

While there are various CLM solutions to choose from, finding the right one is just as important as automating certificate management in the first place.

Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) goes above and beyond; this purpose-built, centralized platform is capable of automating all aspects of the digital certificate lifecycle.

SCM brings not only added convenience, but also, confidence. Boasting a long history of success as a Certificate Authority (CA) and as a CLM provider, Sectigo is widely recognized as an industry leader, having earned powerful recognition from trusted authorities such as Frost & Sullivan, G2, and CRN. Sectigo has long made a best-in-class impression with SSL/TLS certificates of all validation levels — and this reliability extends to Sectigo’s automated solutions.

Speaking to Sectigo’s impressive reputation, Dena Bauckman, Senior Vice President, Product highlights a “continued recognition as the foremost authority in CLM,” adding that this is a critical solution not only for managing “digital trust and risk management today but [also for] stay[ing] secure in the future.”

Automated digital certificate management

As a cloud-native platform designed to automate the full certificate management process, SCM makes it a breeze to manage certificates across the full technology stack, while also driving seamless management for certificates derived from third-party private CAs.

Offering the chance to handle public key infrastructure (PKI) in the cloud, SCM simplifies certificate management but can scale to meet evolving business and security needs. Advantages include:

Human error reduction

Manual certificate processes are, unfortunately, prone to human error. Misconfiguration is often a problem, and even if properly implemented at the outset, manually managed certificates can be vulnerable to expiration if employees fail to keep up with complex certificate renewal processes. SCM can overcome these problems and in turn, enhance efficiency, reliability, and credibility.

Full crypto agility support

As cryptographic algorithms evolve (and as a new era of quantum computing approaches), it is more important than ever that digital certificate strategies adjust accordingly. Cryptographic agility determines whether trusted cryptographic solutions can be adjusted quickly enough to maintain an overall strong security posture even as the digital environment undergoes sudden and dramatic changes.

Certificate agility is a critical component of overall crypto agility, and thankfully, this should be easily achieved when working with a trusted CLM solution. Sectigo prioritizes crypto agility and, in addition to safeguarding enterprises through reliable certificate management, also promises to enhance protection via quantum-safe hybrid SSL certificates.

Vast interoperability

In an increasingly complex digital environment, interoperability should be top of mind. Sectigo Certificate Manager ensures this by providing dozens of integration options. This interoperable environment is built on SCM’s status as a CA-agnostic platform but also encompasses integrations with numerous cloud providers, key vaults, DevOps tools, load balancing, and even Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM).

Economic impact: cost savings and business benefits of Sectigo Certificate Manager

The benefits highlighted above should be compelling on their own, but Sectigo also has quantifiable evidence to back up these promises.

Most notable: a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by the esteemed Forrester — a leading research and advisory firm. Known for identifying cutting-edge trends via data-driven research methodologies, Forrester calls on the world’s most experienced and passionate analysts to drive powerful insights.

Key metrics from Forrester’s TEI study

To reveal the benefits and concerns presented by SCM, Forrester aggregated feedback from interviews conducted with five subjects. These subjects held extensive experience with Sectigo and with the SCM platform.

Prior to utilizing SCM, these interviewees relied on inefficient manual processes for issuing and renewing SSL/TLS certificates. After investing in SCM, however, they observed dramatic reductions in certificate outages, along with improved compliance and overall better efficiency.

Altogether, the return on investment (ROI) reached an astounding 243 percent, with the total three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) of $1.3 million far outweighing modest implementation costs. Moving forward, SCM is expected to spark further savings as 90-day certificate periods become a reality.

Three-year financial benefits

Enterprises can recoup their investment in SCM within a few short months, but the financial benefits become especially obvious after three years, as evidenced by Forrester’s results. Powerful metrics prove that, while pricing matters, the cost of failing to implement a CLM solution could be significant. Key findings include:

• Provisioning-related labor cost reductions exceeding $1.3 million over the span of three years. What’s more, respondents experienced renewal-oriented labor cost reductions of $965,000.

• Savings of $119,000 (over three years) due to the reduced need for legacy solutions and related licensing, hosting, and maintenance complications.

• An amazing reduction of $2.4 million in outage-related expenses — achieved because SCM not only offers tracking capabilities to resolve outages promptly, but also, because automated renewals prevent outages from occurring in the first place.

Real-world impact: transformations with Sectigo

Forrester’s TEI study is insightful not only because it quantifies the long-term financial impact of investing in SCM, but also, because it feels so relatable to so many business leaders and IT professionals. Concerns outlined in the study reflect wide-scale issues experienced within many organizations and across numerous industries.

One respondent explained that, before implementing SCM, manual processes involving spreadsheets were frustrating, not to mention “extremely time-consuming and prone to errors.”

The result? Frequent service outages. According to an interviewed information security manager, these outages had previously occurred with up to 60 people on calls, with resolution efforts typically taking around 12 hours but sometimes extending up to a full 24 hours.

Respondents also mentioned added flexibility achieved through working with Sectigo. A senior cybersecurity manager explained, “Sectigo has made the company more agile. We can generate thousands of certificates with automation, which would be impossible to manage manually.”

Investing in Sectigo Certificate Manager: a smart choice for enterprises

Promising huge savings related to certificate provisioning, renewals, and outage prevention, Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) streamlines time-consuming and costly processes to bring enhanced efficiency and confidence to every phase of digital certificate lifecycle management. Discover the power of automated certificate management — schedule a demo or start your free trial.

Download the Forrester TEI study to learn more

Intrigued by Forrester’s findings? We’ve provided a quick snapshot into the metrics underscoring long-term SCM success — but an even deeper dive is available, revealing the full costs and benefits of adopting SCM. To view a detailed financial analysis, download the full TEI study today.

Want to learn more? Get in touch to book a demo of Sectigo Certificate Manager!

Related posts:

G2 awards Sectigo leader status in Certificate Lifecycle Management for fifth consecutive quarter

Sectigo announces significant financial benefits in Forrester TEI study

Cost savings and business benefits with Sectigo Certificate Manager

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Sectigo authored by Dena Bauckman. Read the original post at: https://www.sectigo.com/resource-library/sectigo-certificate-manager-benefits-cost-savings