The Dairy Farm Group addresses rising security software cost with Sophos Endpoint Security and Control

IT security and control firm Sophos today announced that leading pan-Asian retail firm the Dairy Farm Group (Dairy Farm) has implemented Sophos Endpoint Security and Control for preventive network security and endpoint assessment and control, and to lower the total cost of ownership caused by rising software outlay.

Dairy Farm operates more than 4,600 retail outlets across Asia Pacific, including the Wellcome and Cold Storage chain of supermarkets, 7-Eleven and Starmart convenience stores, Mannings and Guardian heath and beauty outlets, as well as IKEA home furnishings stores in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Business expansion throughout the region has necessitated the need for additional software licenses to be acquired.  Prior to implementing Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, enterprise-class security software from multiple vendors were deployed to safeguard users across the enterprise network from malware threats.

"At Dairy Farm, it is crucial for our investments to aid shareholder value creation, including spending on IT, especially during times of economic uncertainty and budget cuts." said Gerhard Roux, Group CIO and Supply Chain Director of Dairy Farm. "We have experienced a significant reduction in our TCO since the rollout of Sophos Endpoint Security and Control. Implementation was quick and smooth, and it took us only 6 days to complete the first transition for 900 users."

Sophos Endpoint Security and Control allows Dairy Farm to centrally deploy and manage antivirus and client firewall protection, intrusion prevention, application control, and endpoint assessment and control across multiple platforms. The integrated network access control (NAC) functionality also enables Dairy Farm to proactively assess the compliance status of both managed and unauthorised computers before they are permitted to access the network.

"Rising software outlay is a thorny issue for most enterprises. Besides cost, complexity in security management is another challenge that many CIOs and IT directors have to constantly grapple with," said Jim Dowling, Director of Sales for Asia, Sophos. "Our approach of simplifying how security is managed has been gathering credit from our customers worldwide. In fact, over half of newly-acquired Sophos customers were competitive displacements that cited frustration with their previous security vendors."