Nehal Thakore, Country Head UKI at Bosch CyberCompare explains why this vendor agnostic procurement platform is getting rave reviews.

In October 2022, multinational engineering and technology company, Bosch announced the UK expansion of its cybersecurity procurement platform, Bosch CyberCompare, to help businesses make the right selection when it comes to purchasing cybersecurity solutions.

While rising cyber-attacks reinforce the need for organisations to find and implement the correct cybersecurity solutions for their business, Nehal Thakore, Country Head, UK, at Bosch CyberCompare says the sheer number of cybersecurity tools, software, and vendors available means it is “increasingly difficult for IT leaders to choose a solution that is most affordable and effective to suit their business needs.” Or at least it was, until the advent of CyberCompare in Germany four years ago.

Having experienced the complexities of the cybersecurity procurement process first hand, Bosch employees Jannis Stemmann, Simeon Mussler and Philipp Pelkmann conceived the idea of a B2B style platform that would simplify the process for other businesses.

They took their idea to Bosch GROW, the internal incubator for startups within Bosch and four years ago, Bosch CyberCompare was born. Before founding CyberCompare, Jannis worked in numerous management positions, as well as chief of staff to the management at Bosch. He had also worked as project leader for McKinsey serving industrial clients.

Simeon previously worked in production technology and its safeguarding in several stations at Bosch’s global production sites. Prior to that, he worked as project leader with McKinsey for five years serving tech clients.

Philipp was previously responsible for IT in Bosch plants in AP, led the industry 4.0 cluster in central IT, and was chief of staff to the management at Bosch. He started his career as a software developer.

Cybersecurity procurement: simplifying the process

Bosch CyberCompare supports companies and the public sector when purchasing cybersecurity for enterprise IT, Operational Technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) used in production or products.

The platform enables customers to procure cybersecurity services as well as all kinds of products while providing specification templates, recommendations, anonymised requests for proposals, comparisons of actual provider quotes and running complete requests for quotes (RFQs).

With a team of cybersecurity experts in Germany and the UK, the platform can compare quotes from more than 7,000 providers of cybersecurity solutions and providers for IT, OT and IoT environments.

Commenting on the UK launch, Dr. Jannis Stemmann, Founder and CEO at Bosch CyberCompare said: “Why should every organisation start from scratch when purchasing cybersecurity, instead of building on good practices and benefitting from platform effects? CyberCompare offers the opportunity to get the project completed faster, with low risk and for a lower budget.”

Since its launch four years ago, the German arm has supported over 350 customers in varying sectors including chemicals, e-commerce, automotive and the public sector. Similar success is expected here in the UK too. “Having an established brand in the market helps a lot, as we can draw on the wider experiences of our colleagues at Bosch. That said, as a subsidiary we are very much treated as a separate entity within the company” says Thakore.

Bosch CyberCompare is 100% independent, acts on the customer’s behalf and does not have any sales partnerships with vendors. “Our USP in the market is that we are totally vendor agnostic,” says Thakore, likening it to an independent mortgage broker.

Why choose CyberCompare?

Asked what makes CyberCompare so attractive to the small to medium sized businesses, Thakore takes us back to his opening statement: “there is no one size fits all approach to cybersecurity.” And there are four big reasons why. “First, smaller businesses and start-ups are more likely to be attacked and hacked because they are plentiful and generally have weak security, whereas larger enterprises have larger teams and more money for a solution, which shields them a little bit.”

Then you have different vulnerabilities. Thakore cites the metaphorical example of two accountancy firms on the same road. One firm always has 100% of their staff on site, the other firm has 60% of the staff working remotely at all times. This therefore means that the 60% of remote workers have remote access needs, which involves different technologies to the on-site workers, and generally speaking the on-site workers and remote workers will be working from a separate technology stack to each other.

Their working needs may look identical, but their security requirements are very different. This is  where CyberCompare can help businesses with regards to their security requirements as we currently have 7,000 vendors to choose from, some of which will be able to provide businesses with the exact security requirements.

If we look at the categories in cybersecurity, the procurement process requires expertise (market overview, understanding differentiating factors, looking through the marketing blast, etc.). However, this procurement process only happens every few years for most companies – so building the expertise in-house is inefficient in a low-resourced setup. The sourcing of cybersecurity then, is increasingly relevant and complex at the same time, says Thakore.

“The fragmentation of the market with fast developments and new and better solutions with core USPs makes it hard even to know where to start; many don’t even begin, which is very understandable. So often the pragmatic answer is to ask someone, go with an existing partner, or read through white papers on the Internet. Opting for a competitive tendering process with multiple vendors is time-consuming and requires specific expertise. On the other hand, a decision by the budget holders is often harder to get if there is no evident proof of market players, different options, and a comparison of offers.”

Bringing together the understanding of B2B platforms, generating transparency, reducing complexity, and increasing efficiency for all parties is the premise on which Bosch CyberCompare is built. “We have established a two-sided platform to solve the issue for customers and providers/vendors and create efficient security sourcing,” says Thakore. “From the customer perspective, it is all about efficiently finding the most suitable cybersecurity solution or service (in terms of resources and cost) and gaining the confidence of internal and external stakeholders to make the right decision without having to build the expertise in-house.”

While the vendor agnostic aspect is very new, particularly in the UK, customers have been very receptive to it. “We normally save companies between 20% and 40% of what they are paying. In Germany 33% of our customers are repeat business. Plus, we have vendors asking how us how they can get on our radar, as for them it’s a qualified lead. So, vendors are keen, and customers find it refreshing.”

In terms of a cybersecurity procurement solution, for Nehal and his customers, nothing compares to CyberCompare.

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