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Security Compass’ SD Elements Platform Delivers 332% ROI According to Independent TEI Study

Published Date
Author Security Compass

Study provides empirical evidence into the cost savings and business benefits of implementing SD Elements based on independent interviews with SD Elements customers  

TORONTO – April 20, 2021 – Security Compass, a leading cybersecurity solutions provider, today released the results of a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The TEI study evaluates the potential benefit of deploying SD Elements, including decreasing the time to develop security requirements for products by 90%. The study is available for download here.

SD Elements offers a developer-centric approach to solve the age-old challenge of defining and implementing appropriate software security requirements. By enabling teams to integrate security and compliance by design, organizations reduce costs and accelerate software time to market across their application portfolio. SD Elements helps software development teams continuously model software threats at scale, and then write code that significantly reduces cyber risk and remediation costs.

To better understand the benefits, costs and risks associated with an investment in SD Elements, Forrester interviewed four decision-makers with direct experience using the platform. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization. The decision-maker interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $2.86 million over three years versus costs of $663,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $2.20 million and an ROI of 332%.

Key Benefits of SD Elements for Customers

  • Enables organizations to avoid vulnerability remediation, worth $396,000 over three years.
  • Reduces costs due to automation of manual security requirement tasks, worth $739,000 over three years. 
  • Increases productivity due to reduction in product security requirements development time, worth $1.7 million over three years.
  • Decreases time spent on compliance certifications, worth $67,000 over three years.
  • Increases speed-to-market; improves development team capabilities to focus on core responsibilities; enhances capability to prioritize and delegate tasks based on skill level and complexity.

“Many companies employ a ‘find and fix’ approach to software security by using code scanners after code is written. By taking a proactive approach and ‘shifting left’, cybersecurity vulnerabilities can be prevented. SD Elements plays a significant role in our customers’ ability to accelerate the secure development of applications and solutions to meet market requirements,” said Trevor Young, Chief Product Officer, Security Compass. “As part of the TEI study, interviewees noted that prior to using SD Elements, their organizations used archaic, manual spreadsheets to create, track and update security requirements, which often overlooked critical requirements and at times, made it necessary to rewrite code. We are proud to report that after investing in SD Elements, the interviewees experienced a reduction in critical vulnerabilities and improved developer productivity.”

Customer Quotes

  • “SD Elements allows us to scale our security governance to meet the requirements of various jurisdictions. The automation it brings speeds up our process tremendously.” — Chief product security officer, building equipment and controls
  • “When deploying SD Elements, we saw a huge decrease in the cost of critical vulnerabilities that were being produced and reworked.” — Vice president, cybersecurity, financial services
  • "The SD Elements team keeps adding more functionality, including the ability to integrate with other components of the CI/CD pipeline and ticketing tools.” — VP of DevOps and cybersecurity

To download the full TEI study and review the full benefits of SD Elements, click here. Security Compass is also hosting a webinar, featuring a Forrester Senior TEI Consultant guest speaker, on Thursday, May 12, 2022. Register here to register for the free webinar and learn more about how organizations are using SD Elements.