BOSTON (05/31/2000) - Xerox Europe, the European arm of Stamford, Connecticut-based Xerox Corp., has signed a five-year, $20 million managed security services contract with Axent Technologies Inc. to secure its mobile workforce and digital business initiatives.
Beginning this year with several thousand users, Rockville, Maryland-based Axent, together with its subsidiary Secure Network Consulting Inc., will create an electronic security framework and service agreement that is expected to serve up to 100,000 Xerox customers and employees by mid-2002.
Xerox Europe, which had revenue of $5.3 billion in 1999 and employs 18,500 people, is expected to save $20 million per year using its parent company's eCommerce secure electronic trading environment. Xerox Europe is following the current trend for focusing on its core competencies and outsourcing security services to experts.
Increasing corporate initiatives for online commerce systems - combined with recent attacks on e-commerce sites and a shortage of trained security managers - has pushed the demand for outsourced security services. David Tapper, an analyst at Framingham, Massachusetts-based International Data Corp., estimates that the market for security consulting should reach $14.8 billion by 2003, up from $6.2 billion last year.
Managed security is a key part of Xerox's plan to reinvent itself from its analog copier business to a digital document and information technology company, according to Jim Lawler, senior director and general manager of Xpress, Xerox Europe's purchasing group. Lawler said the support of Axent's ServiceShield Enterprise Management managed security services is the cornerstone of Xerox's plans to move its mobile European workforce, its field service engineers and its business-critical processes and communications to the Internet.
"What Xerox is trying to do is create a seamless digital environment for customers' employers and suppliers," said Lawler. "Axent offered the best value for the money as well as robustness of environment" Xerox plans to integrate the Axent security services into its eProcurement and eCommerce initiatives, which the company said will improve customer service, electronically exchange orders from thousands of partners and automate manual, legacy processes.
Xerox also hopes to improve efficiencies in fulfillment, delivery, stockholding, logistics and financials. Currently, its partners across Europe send in purchase orders by post or fax that are then manually input. The new system will enable a partner to send an electronic order securely to a Web site.
While Xerox's goal is to Web-enable all communications throughout the company, Xerox officials felt they didn't have the security expertise, procedures or practices in place to do so safely. Lawler said the former security system was comprised of an internally managed firewall product. The company is also looking for greater efficiency in remotely managing millions of Xerox hardware devices.
"As more of our services have online remote diagnostics, this ensures remote management of millions and millions of remote Xerox environments as we put remote solutions in the products themselves," said Lawler.
Axent will gather information about Xerox's business practices and information management and dovetail those in industry parameters and technical protocols.
The system will extend from the customer's gateway into the Xerox network.
Lawler said Axent also offers a deeper understanding of European technical standards, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, encryption and privacy regulations essential for his business. He noted that Europe has a high adaptation of mobile technology - in places like Finland and Sweden, 80% of workers use mobile phones and laptops.
"We are talking about a very highly mobile workforce, and these security services have to cover our mobile workforce, field service organization, e-commerce and procurement organization in a rapidly changing environment," said Lawler.
Under the terms of the agreement, Xerox will use a range of Axent's security services and almost all of its products. Brett Jackson, president and chief operating officer at Axent, said Xerox represents Axent's most significant managed security service partnership and largest contract to date.
Service offerings range from vulnerability assessment and integrity management to firewall and detection response management. Axent's Smart Security Architecture will be used to smooth the integration and interoperability of third-party products. The company's Lifecycle Security Model provides an ongoing process to identify security risks, adapt to growing threats and meets evolving business needs. Axent will also provide Xerox with 24/7 security monitoring to manage unauthorized access and changes to security systems.
"We are planning to scale up 20 to 40 times, and the current security estimates would not have taken us forward into the 21st century," said Lawler.