Forrester analyzed the earnings calls of the 10 largest cybersecurity vendors by market cap and identified key trends for technology executives (Forrester clients can read the report here). Earnings calls provide valuable insight into your vendors’ strategic performance — you need strong partners that are not only financially resilient but have a clear strategy for how their portfolio will deal with upcoming tech, economic, and threat challenges. The trends revealed on these calls show some of your vendors’ sales tactics and negotiation strategies, which you can then use to your advantage in the procurement process. Forrester identified the following key trends in the latest round of earnings calls:
Managed services gain momentum for vendors, but benefits are dubious. Vendors are increasingly leaning on managed services to boost revenue, positioning them as a way for you to save time and reduce resource strain. For example, CrowdStrike, Trend Micro and Rapid7’s managed service businesses all experienced double-digit growth. At first glance, adopting managed security services can streamline your security operations, but this is not a guarantee. Ensure that you define your desired outcomes before signing up to these seemingly attractive deals, and ask vendors to clarify the measurable benefits — such as faster incident response or more accurate threat detection — to see if these services will integrate with your existing systems and teams.
Market volatility could mean better negotiating power for tech execs. Even when vendors posted strong recent earnings, stock prices often dipped due to uncertainty in their future outlook or due to weaker guidance than analysts anticipated. Additionally, headcounts dropped in 2024 only for companies to reverse back to attracting talent again in 2025. In their quest for growth in these volatile conditions, vendors are offering more aggressive pricing or bundle deals to secure your commitment. Press vendors on real ROI, rather than being tantalized by attractive discounts in contract proposals or renewals, and emphasize mutual flexibility and partnership through contract clauses. If the future is truly uncertain, you’ll want the option to pivot if budgets, technologies, or threats change more quickly than expected with your cyber partners.
Platform and AI hype demand closer scrutiny. Every vendor has now built or acquired an integrated platform and invested in an AI-driven strategy. The record acquisition from Google taking over Wiz, for example, showcases Google’s strategy to buy and integrate rather than build. These dynamics provide competitive pressure on vendors, and for you, they make it harder to determine hype from reality. This not only leads to a full platform play being a key consideration for buyers but also puts pressure on competitors such as Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, and others. Because every vendor claims an integrated platform and AI-driven strategy, it’s getting harder and harder to determine which emperors actually have no clothes. For vendors promising end-to-end coverage via a single platform, verify how seamlessly these tools truly integrate or whether AI is genuinely improving capabilities by requesting evidence of success from your peers in environments similar to yours. You want to avoid accidentally becoming the marquee client. Additionally, assess your concentration risk of working with one vendor and diversify if you need to do so.
Forrester technology executive or security and risk clients who have questions about these earnings calls can reach out to to me via inquiry or guidance session.
