Cybersecurity Strategy: Platform Approach vs. Point Solutions

The Evolving Landscape of Cybersecurity Defence.

Organisations today face an unprecedented challenge in cybersecurity. As digital threats evolve in sophistication and scale, security teams must continuously adapt their defensive strategies to protect critical assets and data. This adaptation has created a fundamental strategic question: is it better to deploy multiple specialised point solutions or adopt an integrated platform approach?

The Point Solution Dilemma

Many organisations have historically built their security infrastructure through incremental adoption of specialised tools, each addressing specific security challenges. According to a recent Gartner survey of 162 large enterprises, organisations use an average of 45 cybersecurity tools. *

Supporters of the ‘best-of-breed’ viewpoint site the following reasons:

• Specialised Capabilities: Point solutions can provide superior performance in their specific domains
• Flexibility: Organisations can select the exact tools that match their unique security requirements
• Innovation Adoption: Teams can quickly implement cutting-edge solutions as they emerge

However, this approach has created significant challenges for security teams:

Integration Complexity

Tools with different interfaces, protocols, and requirements create integration nightmares, causing substantial time and resource strain on IT teams. These disconnected systems can result in security gaps between tools that attackers can exploit.

Data Overload

Multiple security tools generate overwhelming volumes of alerts and data, much of it disconnected. Security teams struggle to correlate information across platforms, potentially missing critical security incidents while drowning in noise.

Budget Inefficiency

Investing in numerous specialised tools often results in organisations overspending on multiple cybersecurity licenses, often with overlapping capabilities, that provide diminishing returns or become redundant as organisational needs evolve.

Skills Fragmentation

Each point solution requires specialised knowledge to deploy and maintain effectively, spreading technical expertise thin and creating potential security blind spots when key personnel are unavailable or leave the organisation.

The Platform Approach Alternative

The single-vendor – a.k.a. ‘platform’ – approach to cybersecurity, introduced by vendors in the late 2010s, continues to gain momentum. It’s prominently featured in Gartner’s “Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2025” as Trend 4: Cybersecurity Technology Optimisation.

For CISOs and CTOs focused on operational efficiency, cost control, and effective incident management, a platform approach offers compelling advantages:

Reduced Complexity

A unified platform consolidates multiple security functions into a single ‘pane of glass’ and management framework. This simplification reduces the risk of human error and provides a clearer operational picture for security teams.

Seamless Integration

Purpose-built platforms offer natively integrated components designed to work together. This designed-in integration enables automation of repetitive tasks and provides comprehensive visibility across the entire infrastructure, enhancing the effectiveness of security measures.

Unified Response Capabilities

With a platform approach, organisations can implement consistent security policies and rapidly respond to emerging threats across their entire digital estate. Threat intelligence flows seamlessly between components, enabling faster detection and response.

Advanced Analytics Through Centralisation

By centralising security data collection and analysis, platforms can more effectively leverage AI and machine learning to detect anomalies, predict threats, and automate responses – capabilities that are difficult to implement across multiple disconnected point solutions.

Long-Term Cost Efficiency

While point solutions might appear cost-effective initially, their cumulative expenses often escalate due to licensing fees, maintenance requirements, operational overhead and specialised training needs. A unified platform can significantly reduce long-term costs by streamlining operations and consolidating tool management.

Furthermore, with the right vendor, platform solutions are not an all-or-nothing proposition. They are an à la carte offering where allowing organisations to pick and choose the components required for their specific circumstances by activating only the licensing elements they require.

Finding Your Optimal Security Strategy

The decision between a platform approach and point solutions isn’t binary. Many organisations benefit from a hybrid strategy that leverages the strengths of both approaches based on specific security domains and organisational requirements.

Key considerations for your strategy include:

• Assessing your current security architecture and identifying integration pain points
• Evaluating the operational burden of managing multiple tools versus potential capability trade-offs
• Understanding your organisation’s threat profile and specific security requirements
• Considering your security team’s size, expertise, and operational capacity