Background
Inspecs Group Plc is global leader producing large volumes of high quality eyewear for fashion, sports, lifestyle brands and patented concept eyewear. The Inspecs group of companies produce in-house for a global network of distribution to over 80 countries and has 4 manufacturing plants and a global workforce of over 1,800 with its headquarters in Bath, UK.
Inspecs’ reputation in its industry extends well beyond its high-quality products. The strength of the Inspecs brand is built from the inside out – in 2018 Inspecs was voted the Happiest Place to Work in the UK and this work ethic and internal culture spreads through client facing teams to customers, retailers and in the quality of what they produce.
Profile
COMPANY: Inspecs Group Plc
INDUSTRY: Manufacturing
LOCATION: Headquartered in Bath with 14 sales offices globally
COMPANY SIZE: 1800+ employees
SERVICES PROVIDED BY FALANX CYBER: Managed Detection & Response
The Challenge – Growing Business and Growing Threats
Inspecs has grown exponentially since its first acquisition in 2017, growing the workforce at speed, and in 2020 became a PLC listing on the London Stock Exchange. The Inspecs Group IT team therefore has a critical role across the entire business; “providing a seamless experience for staff and focusing on security” says Group Head of IT, Jon Ormston. “We are acquiring a lot of businesses of various sizes and we need to keep up with compliance and governance ensuring our security is as good as can be”.
It was at this same time Jon faced another challenge – a change in personnel inside his security team. Tasks that were previously done internally, such as manually checking alerts from a SIEM system, were no longer feasible. “I needed some immediate help, but I also had to look long term” says Jon.
“The ever-evolving security threat is my biggest nightmare. The bigger we are the bigger target we become.”
– Jon Ormston, Group Head of IT, Inspecs Group Plc.
The Solution – Freeing the IT Team
With staffing changes in his team, Jon knew he had to outsource a solution and roll out quickly. He comments: “There is a lot to look after with a small team, the scope through acquisition has snowballed, to find the right service and company meant we needed to look for an outsourced solution to the problem.”
Inspecs looked at two different managed Security Operations Centre (SOC) services and ultimately chose Falanx Cyber’s Managed Detection & Response service. With a UK-based 24/7/365 SOC that could proactively hunt for threats and respond to alerts in real-time it meant that Jon could trust that Falanx’s security-cleared analysts could work as an extension of his own team and gave him the holiday and out-of-hours cover that was needed to ensure threats could be detected and acted upon around the clock.
Jon had a deadline for the rollout before a staff member was due to leave. “I needed to ensure there was continuity checks and cover.” Jon was very happy with the onboarding to Falanx’s MDR service, “it was very impressive, fairly seamless and quick” and fully monitored prior to the deadline. Inspects eyewear now have all their cloud applications, network and endpoints fully monitored as a managed service.
The Result – Security First
Moving from in-house to an outsourced model was a change of mindset for Jon “I could see in the daily reports that everything was being covered by Falanx. I know that someone is checking other than me when there is an anomaly, I could then move away from checking the alerts myself and trust that the Falanx analysts instinctively knew when something potentially isn’t right”.
Inspecs also benefit from daily and monthly reporting and regular calls with the SOC team at Falanx. “The reporting is really good. I know I can ask for more information if I need to. It’s been excellent and seamless.”
Outsourcing to a fully managed detection and Response SOC service has allowed Jon to be able to concentrate on strategy and delivery while ensuring security is placed first – even when Jon and his team needs to adapt to the businesses priorities as and when new acquisitions are made.
MDR is freeing IT teams at a time when security risks and potential weaknesses are on the increase. It provides you with the ultimate in continuous cybersecurity protection from a team of UK security-cleared analysts. And it costs significantly less than the cost of trying to hire and retain professionals who are increasingly thin on the ground. Isn’t it time you spoke to the MDR experts?
