The company, a major player in the upholstered furniture industry with a sales volume of $1.7bn, primarily in North America, was grappling with the challenge of integrating its S&OP activities. These activities included forecasting, capacity planning, inventory and replenishment planning, and procurement functions. The company was using multiple tools, primarily Excel, for creating their forecast, leading to inaccurate demand forecasts and a lack of demand visibility and collaboration. Furthermore, the company's style level forecasting was hampered by complex processes and lack of data visibility due to the use of legacy systems. This limited them to top-down forecasting. Another challenge was the inclusion of the Distribution Centers' (DCs) capacity to ensure optimized inventory levels for Build-to-Stock.

Carmel Partners, a real estate investment firm operating in select markets across the U.S., was faced with the challenge of maintaining network integrity, upholding customer confidence, and ensuring regulatory compliance while improving employee productivity. The growing multi-faceted organization needed a solution to secure network traffic, protect against data loss, and provide secure site-to-site connectivity. They also needed to equip their employees with the ability to securely share data, protect the network from next-generation and Web 2.0 threats, reduce management complexity, and improve visibility of traffic across multiple network segments.

CRIF, a leading provider of added-value solutions and information services for the financial services industry, embarked on an extensive virtualization project across its entire infrastructure. The project was extended to the security layer with specific goals to simplify IT security and management, reduce costs, streamline resource utilization, guarantee the highest reliability and extensive network protection, gain a comprehensive view over transactions and applications, and future-proof the security infrastructure with an eye on increasing virtualization. The challenge was to find a solution that offered the highest reliability and performance, transparent security management from a centralized console, effective management of a mixed (virtual/physical) environment, and the ability to scale by adding new systems and services as soon as they were needed.

Hospital 9 de Julho, one of the most significant private health institutions in Brazil, was facing a significant challenge in ensuring the security of its digital environment. The hospital was using a 'home-made' solution that was simple and did not offer complete security or efficient controls to protect data and information leakage. The hospital often found itself in critical situations without having complete visibility of what was happening in its system. The main deficiencies included inefficient tools and applications to support the infrastructure and a lack of awareness among teams about the importance of controlling access and protecting information. The hospital needed a solution that would provide greater visibility and control over its security systems, ensure security when accessing digital systems, and make the digital environment widely available for internal and external users.

FXCM Inc., a global online foreign exchange trading service provider, was facing challenges in securing its distributed network environment. The company, which serves approximately 200,000 retail customers and 200 of the world’s top hedge funds and banks, operates across 15 global offices. The challenge was to find a robust network security solution that could be deployed regionally and managed centrally by a small dedicated staff. The solution needed to provide robust integrated security, high-performance data center grade hardware, simplified network security management, administration, and reporting, and be part of a single vendor eco-system.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), a large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise, was facing significant challenges in protecting its complex network infrastructure from increasingly sophisticated threats. Traditional firewall and anti-virus protection were proving insufficient. The company needed a comprehensive and robust security solution that could protect its information assets, provide secure remote access to corporate resources, integrate intrusion prevention for increased protection, and simplify and centralize network security management. The solution also needed to be future-proofed, capable of evolving with the company's needs and the ever-changing threat landscape.

NHS Blood and Transplant, a part of the National Health Service (NHS), is responsible for collecting, processing, storing, and issuing approximately 2.1 million blood donations per year. In addition to handling blood donations, the organization also conducts research to improve the safety of blood and blood products. This involves storing confidential personal data and sensitive research data, making it crucial for the organization to have a fail-safe data security solution. Although NHS Blood and Transplant already had a robust laptop and PC security solution in place as an existing Check Point customer, they needed to enhance the protection for sensitive data on its PCs to comply with the latest UK Government’s directives on data security in the public sector.

Kingdee Youshang E-business Service Co. Ltd., a leading player in China's enterprise online management service market, faced several challenges in maintaining a high level of security for its cloud computing and endpoint devices. The company needed to implement robust mobile data protection and improve efficiency for its remote offices. Many small and medium-sized businesses, which are Kingdee Youshang's primary customers, lack the necessary IT resources for deploying ERP and CRM software solutions. Kingdee Youshang specializes in providing this market with a full array of software, platform, and service support, including security. To ensure proper protection of its resources, the company needed to secure its applications with a robust data protection solution, ensure data integrity on client’s endpoint machines with proven encryption technology, and improve the efficiency of remote offices while maintaining a high level of security for cloud computing and endpoint devices.

Ada County, Idaho, is responsible for managing and maintaining security for multiple departments across several cities. The county's multi-agency network includes Emergency Management, Parks and Waterways, Juvenile Court, Paramedics, Waste Management, and more. The challenge was to maintain separate network zones for each agency and specific policies for departments and individuals. The primary focus for the Ada County IT organization was robust integrated security, consolidation of technologies, and centralized management. They needed to integrate the latest network protection strategies for a strong security posture, manage a large distributed security infrastructure, eliminate the administrative burden associated with operating a multi-vendor security solution, and simplify network security management, administration, and reporting.

Getronics, a leading IT services provider, was facing the challenge of adapting to the growing trend towards virtualization without compromising on functionality, quality, flexibility, or manageability. The company needed a solution that would allow for smooth and easy integration of virtual solutions in a mixed management environment. They also required a system that would simplify the central and operational management of several clients in a shared environment. The solution had to be mature and proven, with a track record of quality.

Geiger Brothers, a promotional products company, faced a significant challenge in 2005 when it acquired four companies and established four new offices. The company's 500 employees across 20 offices relied heavily on the centralized order management system and document image system, which contained 3 million documents, including all orders, sales receipts, and expense reports. The company was running a nearly entirely paperless operation, which increased the demand for secure and efficient remote access for employees. This demand was not only from executives who were frequently traveling for acquisitions and industry tradeshows but also from sales associates who wanted the flexibility to work from home or other locations. The challenge was to simplify remote access for executives and sales associates, create cost-effective, secure networks and connectivity in small office/home office (SOHO), speed up the deployment of new branch offices, and enable high availability and performance for data and voice.

International SOS, a global medical and security assistance company, faced significant challenges in securing its communications. The company used appliances for this purpose, but found them to be cumbersome in emergencies and remote locations. Most firewall and VPN security solutions required a great deal of patience and knowledge to set up, and were not the primary focus in remote field locations where medical and physical security emergencies were more pressing. Additionally, not every solution could be managed from a single console, which demanded a lot of attention from IT administrators. From a cost perspective, most appliances and other security solutions carried a high cost of ownership, unnecessarily burdening the company. Furthermore, finding local technical administration talents in remote locations, especially for specialized appliances, proved to be a challenge.

Pacific Coffee Company, a rapidly growing coffee chain with around 80 retail outlets throughout Singapore, Hong Kong, and China, faced a significant challenge when transitioning from conventional cash registers to a modern, integrated Point-of-Sale (POS) system. The challenge was primarily related to network security, especially with the introduction of a new customer loyalty card program, the Perfect Cup Card. This card, which replaced the previous paper card system, required the secure sharing of real-time transaction data between the POS terminals in coffee outlets and the main data center. The company needed a solution that could securely handle this data transfer, protect the POS systems from potential security threats, and support the new sales and marketing initiatives associated with the Perfect Cup Card.

The University of Hawaii (UH) was facing a significant challenge in managing its computer-network security and availability for over 47,000 students and 30 in-house software developers. The university was using a firewall from a legacy computer-network provider, which lacked the necessary functionality and user-friendly interface. With a community of over 58,000 students, faculty, and staff, and a peak usage of 36,000 sessions per second, UH needed to stay ahead of the network demand curve and prevent potential performance issues. The university also required a solution that was flexible and adaptable to the changing pattern of attacks on the Internet. The existing firewall/VPN was too rigid and lacked intelligent management capabilities. Therefore, UH began to evaluate alternatives to its current configuration in winter 2004.

TekJet, a Denver-based managed IT services provider, was looking to expand its services to include IT security. The company, which primarily serves small- and medium-sized businesses, had transitioned from a 'break-fix' business model to a managed services model, offering additional value-added services. However, to incorporate IT security into its service portfolio, TekJet needed a solution that would integrate seamlessly with its existing managed services platform. This platform was used for remotely managing customer infrastructures, including network components, servers, and desktop PCs. Furthermore, TekJet required the capability to remotely control policy and upgrades for all customers from their Network Operation Center.

The City of Montreal faced a significant challenge when it was required to merge with 28 surrounding suburbs, a move that was met with considerable opposition. This led to the promise of referendums to reverse the mergers, provided sufficient voters registered for the referendum. To facilitate this process, the City needed to set up temporary voter registration centers, which required a secure and efficient system to manage sensitive voter information. The City had to ensure total security for this sensitive data, provide a quick setup for these temporary centers, and supply efficient security management. The challenge was further compounded by the need to update the centralized voter list in real time, reducing paper volume and saving time over the previous manual process of collecting paper forms for later data entry.

Tokiwa University, a private educational corporation in Japan, unveiled its new Media and Information Technology Center in 2005 to facilitate education and research across the campus. The center houses a full inventory of digital equipment, including computers, video production studios and equipment, and much more. In 1995, the university connected to the Internet through participation in SINET (Science Information Network). As the needs of the faculty and students quickly grew beyond Web browsing and email, branching into a variety of other applications, the university faced growing issues of network bandwidth and guaranteed availability. The university needed to balance security with network expansion and guaranteed availability. They needed an environment allowing free access to the Internet for students, which means they absolutely had to have strong security measures in place.

The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, one of the largest human services organizations in the nation, faced significant challenges related to remote access connections due to its sheer size and the nature of its operations. The organization runs programs in facilities that are not always their own, and a growing number of employees, particularly at the management level, needed to connect to the network from their home or off-site locations. The challenge was to provide these workers with a way to take their laptops off-site or work from home but still be able to connect to the network and access their desktops to retrieve important information. The organization needed a reliable, secure, and cost-effective solution to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of restricted information.

Hixardt Technologies, a company specializing in providing technology services and solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses, faced a significant challenge. The company's primary focus was on businesses with 25-35 users, a segment often overlooked in terms of IT solutions. Most available solutions were either designed for individual consumers or large enterprises, leaving a gap in the market for SMBs. Hixardt needed a solution that could cater to the unique needs of these businesses, particularly in terms of IT security. The solution needed to be integrated into Hixardt’s management system, allowing for centralized management of its clients' IT needs in real-time, while also being cost-effective and profitable.

Jeonju University, a leading educational institution in South Korea, was faced with the challenge of managing a vast database of academic credits and personal records for its 12,000 students and nearly 250,000 graduates. The university's existing server was overburdened with daily traffic, leaving it vulnerable to increased attacks and creating a precarious internet environment. The university needed a quick, efficient, and cost-effective security solution that could handle the growing need for protection and ensure the confidentiality and integrity of restricted information.

Osmose, a leader in wood preservation technology and asset management, was faced with the challenge of supporting the needs of 800 users in their corporate headquarters and 200 remote users. The remote users, who frequently traveled and used their laptops in various locations worldwide, posed a significant security risk. The company's sensitive and proprietary information was at risk of being compromised due to potentially unsecured endpoints logging in from all over the world. Osmose had a limited IT resource and struggled to ensure these endpoints were secure before accessing the corporate network. As a result, they instituted a closed Internet access policy that required remote users to whitelist the hotel's network before accessing the corporate network. This policy was not well received by users, and many stopped trying to use the Internet access available in hotels. Another challenge was the issue of basic Microsoft Security updates. Many employees neglected to download the latest improvements, further compromising the security of the network.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) had been a Check Point customer for about eight years and was familiar with the quality and superiority of Check Point security solutions. However, they faced a challenge when users began experiencing problems with secure remote access. With approximately 70 percent of employees working outside the organization’s headquarters, IFAW needed a secure remote access solution that could guarantee more internal security and controls, especially for mobile users. The majority of mobile users were migrating away from using IFAW global dial-up access to the available broadband access options in hotels and conference rooms. This migration led to issues such as worm infestations, an increase in malware, and users returning to the office with unauthorized software installed on their devices. IFAW was concerned that the remote workforce, who had access to confidential internal systems while on the road, would use a VPN tunnel to unknowingly inject something inappropriate inside network headquarters.

Denbighshire County Council, serving a local population of 93,000 in North Wales, UK, was faced with the challenge of managing web access for a diverse range of users. This included providing and supporting leased-line Internet access for 66 primary and secondary schools across the county, as well as Internet services within the County’s local libraries, in addition to maintaining the Council’s own internal network. The council’s IT team was tasked with the daunting task of sorting through the massive volumes of log data produced by its security and network devices every day. Converting millions of data logs from multiple sources into usable, actionable information was proving to be an insurmountable task for the small IT team. This not only made it difficult to perform security checks or spot emerging attacks or vulnerabilities systematically, but also diverted the IT team’s resources away from other important network management tasks.

P&T Luxembourg, a leading provider of residential and professional services in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, faced a significant challenge in protecting their infrastructure, applications, and data from the increasing threat of Internet attacks. The speed, profusion, and structure of these attacks, including viruses, spamming, and phishing, necessitated the development of preventive and remote security measures. The company needed to ensure that these security measures were in place before any potential attacks could strike their IT infrastructure. Furthermore, there was a growing trend among companies to rely on external service providers for safeguarding their IT networks and infrastructure from Internet threats. To meet this challenge, P&T Luxembourg turned to a range of Check Point solutions to provide its customers with a dependable, quality service.

Memorial Health Services (MHS), a nationally recognized, not-for-profit health care system with five hospitals in Southern California, was faced with the challenge of protecting confidential patient information. With increasing media coverage on the exposure of confidential patient data, MHS was concerned about a potential data breach that could compromise the security or confidentiality of patient information. As one of the top hospital organizations in the country, MHS is responsible for large amounts of confidential patient information. The growing number of employees working remotely and regulatory drivers such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and SB 1386, a California law regulating the privacy of personal information, necessitated a comprehensive data security solution that could be deployed quickly and transparently to secure the personal health information of its patients.

Andrade Gutierrez (AG), one of Brazil’s largest heavy construction firms, was experiencing rapid growth and needed a more reliable, higher-performing, and easier-to-manage network. The company was redesigning its infrastructure to converge voice and data on a single network and required a security solution with the performance and stability to handle the combined traffic. The existing firewalls were unstable, and the company was faced with the decision to upgrade or replace them. At the same time, AG wanted to extend secure network connectivity to all the remote offices at its construction sites in Brazil. While the major offices had direct network links, some smaller offices were left outside the network with only Internet access.

TeliaSonera, a leading telecommunications company, operates in two distinct markets: the Nordic and Baltic regions, and the rest of Europe and Asia. In the mature Nordic and Baltic markets, TeliaSonera services 23 million out of a total population of 31 million customers. The company's growth strategy in these regions involves offering managed services for voice and data that business customers can tailor to their needs. In the European and Asian markets, TeliaSonera only offers mobile services but is continually exploring new opportunities and expanding as appropriate. The company's managed service solutions include monitoring, support, maintenance, and security from the network level to the server level to the desktop. For the security component, TeliaSonera needed a flexible solution that could cater to a wide range of customers from small businesses to large enterprises and provide easy, cost-effective management of hundreds of firewall gateways.

TDC Song, a leading Nordic telecom operator, faced a significant challenge when it was acquired by the TDC Group of Denmark. The acquisition required a name change and a complex consolidation of backend systems across the entire Nordic region, including Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. As a telecom service provider to 23,000 customers, primarily medium to large enterprises, TDC Song needed to offer easy-to-implement security policies to their customers. However, the company only provided capacity and not security consultation. The consolidation project required a solution that could handle the consolidation of separate physical gateways onto one virtualized gateway, while also allowing for easy adjustment of security policies based on individual end-customer preferences.

Agenzia ANSA, a leading news agency in Italy and one of the first in the world, faced a significant challenge in ensuring secure remote access for its travelling users. The agency, which provides complete coverage of Italian and foreign events through 22 offices in Italy and 81 agencies in 74 countries, needed to protect its popular portal from intrusion attempts and attacks. ANSA's journalists, working under stressful conditions and extreme deadline pressure, needed to be able to file their stories in a timely manner from anywhere that news is breaking. The agency had relied on VPN-1 Power for years to guarantee secure connections for its remote offices and local bureaus to the home office. However, there was a need for a solution that would allow users to transmit news stories from any location where there is Internet service.

Shepherd and Wedderburn, a leading UK law firm, was faced with the challenge of securing confidential client information and intellectual property against loss or theft. As a legal organization, the firm handles a large volume of sensitive data daily, ranging from medical litigation cases to employment disputes. The potential consequences of any confidentiality breach would be disastrous for the firm, both in terms of reputation and trust. The firm's IT manager, Mark Findlay, identified three key requirements from a security solution: protection of intellectual property including confidential client information, prevention of nonbusiness software/material introduction onto the corporate network, and prevention of virus infections.