Core Security Improves Investment Decisions with CA Project & Portfolio Management

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1 CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY July 2013 Core Security Improves Investment Decisions with CA Project & Portfolio Management CLIENT PROFILE Industry: Technology Company: Core Security Employees: 200-plus Revenue: US$32 million BUSINESS CORE Security is the leading provider of predictive security intelligence solutions for enterprises and government organizations. The company helps more than 1,400 customers worldwide and has offices in the US, Argentina and India. CHALLENGE To safeguard the success of its engineering initiatives, Core Security needs enterprise-wide visibility of the project portfolio. Disparate processes were impacting this visibility as well as efficiency. SOLUTION Core Security uses CA Project & Portfolio Management to track the initiatives, resources, costs and documentation associated with $30 million worth of research projects and product programs. BENEFIT The company has the visibility it needs to make informed investment decisions, which helps to minimize risk. More projects are also delivered on time and on budget, and with optimized resource assignments.

2 2 Customer Success Story: Core Security July2013 Business Thinking ahead to predict and prevent security incidents Core Security provides predictive security intelligence solutions used by more than 1,400 corporate and government customers. The company has three main technical divisions: Security Consulting Services, CoreLabs and Engineering. Core Security s solutions are patented, proven and award-winning and range from desktop tools used by security experts to infrastructure-wide testing platforms. Its products and services are backed by more than 15 years of field experience. The company s 200-plus employees work from offices in Boston in the US and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Challenge Safeguarding engineering investments Extensive research is at the heart of Core Security s ability to provide effective security solutions. With its investments spread across three locations on two continents, Core Security needs to ensure its research and engineering projects are managed effectively. To deliver better outcomes, we needed improved communication and visibility. Paula Varas PMO Director, Core Security Paula Varas, PMO Director, comments, Core Security s philosophy is based on a strong research culture. To ensure that research initiatives and product development projects are executed successfully, we need enterprise-wide visibility of the project portfolio. Although most teams were using Microsoft Project, each department had developed its own processes, which meant there was no standard approach across the company. This lack of consistency was causing a number of problems that threatened to impact project success rates. To deliver better outcomes across our projects and product programs, we needed to improve the communication and facilitate visibility among the stakeholders, comments Varas.

3 3 Customer Success Story: Core Security July2013 To meet this goal, Core Security wanted to establish an efficient Program Management Office, which was responsible for managing all projects and implementing a common process. To support this vision, Core Security needed a more in-depth project management solution. As Varas explains, We needed a solution that would enable us to consolidate project data across geographically diverse sites in a single repository to facilitate project management, automate administrative tasks, minimise human error and simplify report generation. Solution Centralized visibility of the project portfolio Due to the company s ambitious growth goals, Core Security had just three months to select, design and implement a project and portfolio management solution. The company created a shortlist of seven best-of-breed solutions based on reports from industry analysts firms Gartner and Forrester before eventually selecting CA Project & Portfolio Management. CA Project & Portfolio Management was the leading and most robust solution according to the analyst reports. It was reported to be easy to implement and scale, comments Varas. CA Technologies local support team worked with us from the beginning, addressing our initial needs as well as our vision for growth. Other providers were limited to helping with implementation requirements and lacked local and/or efficient support. CA Project & Portfolio Management was deployed on time by Core Security s internal team following attendance at an intensive five-week training course. Attending the CA training course was a key to developing the skills set needed to deploy the solution on time and achieve our goals. It also allows us to evolve the current implementation at our own pace. CA Services also provided us with a dedicated support expert as part of the implementation, comments Varas. The solution is used to manage more than 15 projects worth approximately US$ 30 million and involving up to 120 engineers. Every new research initiative is managed as an individual project or product program with a unique repository for capturing key documentation throughout the lifecycle from conception through to delivery. All research and engineering initiatives are managed via CA Project & Portfolio Management, which enables us to track budgets across the business according to variables such as investment type and location, comments Varas. Customized reports also enable Core Security s senior executives and managers to view the resource allocation across the company s projects and products. With CA Project & Portfolio Management, we now have access to a real-time dashboard and reports that we can share with the executive team, adds Varas.

4 4 Customer Success Story: Core Security July2013 Benefit Improved investment decisions Using CA Project & Portfolio Management, Core Security can access accurate important project and product lifecycle data in real time and support standardized project management best practices. Alejandro Floridia, a Project Manager at Core Security, comments, One of the main benefits of using CA Project & Portfolio Management is that we have been able to consolidate all project-based information in a consistent format. With more detailed analytics available, we can make better decisions and maximize return from our investments. Improved visibility of the project portfolio has enabled Core Security to: Track new initiatives Make more informed decisions on projects / products Increase the efficiency of project management by enabling better communication among stakeholders at each step of the product lifecycle Make better use of its resources Minimize risk Ensure more projects are delivered on time and on budget. Varas comments, Enhanced project and portfolio management enables us to ensure that our all investments are aligned to our business strategy and our customers needs. With more detailed analytics, we can make better decisions and maximize ROI. Alejandro Floridia Project Manager, Core Security *Please note that, in September 2014, the product name in the original customer success story was updated from CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Management (CA Clarity PPM) to CA Project & Portfolio Management

5 5 Customer Success Story: Core Security July2013 Connect with CA Technologies at CA Technologies helps customers succeed in a future where every business from apparel to energy is being rewritten by software. With CA software at the center of their IT strategy, organizations can leverage the technology that changes the way we live from the data center to the mobile device. Our software and solutions help our customers thrive in the new application economy by delivering the means to deploy monitor and secure their applications and infrastructure. To learn more about our customer success programs, visit /customer-success. For more information about CA Technologies go to. CA All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only, and does not form any type of warranty. The Customer success story is based on the actual experiences of the user but product descriptions may not reflect uses in all environments so actual results may vary.