OVERVIEW

Matas, the largest health and beauty retailer in Denmark, operates a chain of 263 drug stores across the country. The business was founded in 1949, and after many years operating solely as a brick-and-mortar company, Matas launched a digital business in 2010. This digital expansion includes Club Matas, the largest customer loyalty program in Denmark, with more than 1.6 million members. To ensure that its customer data and systems are protected as its business continues to evolve, Matas relies on Trend Micro. 

CHALLENGES

Matas has always focused on operational security and compliance. Ensuring that onsite payment systems are secure means that consumers can make purchases in retail stores without interruption, and it prevents credit card and debit card data loss. When the company launched its digital business, the security of customer data on its digital platforms became the company’s #1 priority. Today, 25% of Matas’ sales occur online.

“My worst nightmare would be finding out we had a breach and customer data was being sold on the black market. That would cripple our strategy and wreck customer trust,” says Thomas Grane, Chief Information Officer (CIO)/Chief Human Resources Officer (CHR) and Director of Technology and Organization at Matas.

WHY TREND

Matas has been a Trend Micro customer for 15 years, using solutions including Trend Micro™ TippingPoint™ and Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ to provide perimeter security and protect its endpoints. As the company underwent a digital transformation and migrated from on-premises data centers to Microsoft Azure and other cloud providers in recent years, it sought to evolve its Trend Micro partnership.

“I had the choice of going forward with Trend Micro or meeting with other companies to learn about their offerings. But there were so many good things about our partnership, staying with Trend Micro was an easy choice. I need a true partnership. I can’t rely on a company just pushing technology to us,” says Grane.

Grane noted that Trend Micro’s continual evolution and industry recognition as a lead cybersecurity company is also a key reason for extending Matas’ partnership.

“I like to be ahead of the game, so as a company we think about security very early. Trend Micro fits into that strategy well,” says Grane.

Grane adds that Matas’ IT personnel now view Trend Micro as an extension of the team.

“Trend Micro puts a lot of effort into connecting with us. That’s a very strategic move because that’s the only way to build a strong relationship,” says Grane.

SOLUTION

As Matas migrated to the cloud, the company adopted Trend Micro Cloud One™ to provide seamless protection of its network layer and workload security. The company is also using Trend Micro™ Managed XDR and TippingPoint both on-premises and in the cloud to detect and disrupt threats.

“I’m not sure I’d be comfortable moving workloads to the cloud if I couldn’t take some of the solutions we have implemented on-premises with us. The different Trend Micro building blocks we use make a full circle of solutions around the things we want to protect,” says Grane.

Matas’ partnership with Trend Micro enables them to securely migrate to the cloud without any barriers.

“That’s one example of why I stick with Trend Micro. They invest heavily in areas that are new to many people, and they are willing to collaborate with customers to make new solutions work,” says Grane. “Our 10x growth in online sales required massive focus, Trend Micro Cloud One™ –– Network Security addressed our cyber-security concerns while we focused on our digital retail business transformation.”

RESULTS

Using a suite of Trend Micro products provides Matas with benefits such as consolidated management, fewer vendor relationships to oversee, and improved overall visibility. “My team can’t see everything that goes on when it comes to security. Having these different solutions in place is crucial because it provides us a very good mechanism of filtering down to the most critical threats we need to focus on, so our work is much more manageable,” says Grane.

Grane adds that the collaboration between Matas and Trend Micro is a big factor in enabling the company to maintain strong data security.

“The way Trend Micro facilitates honest, open discussions rather than pushing products on us builds trust. They meet us at eye level, and that allows us to follow our dreams more aggressively because we have less worry about the risk of exposure,” says Grane.

WHAT'S NEXT

Grane is looking at Trend Micro Cloud One™ – Conformity to enhance its knowledge of cloud costs, best practices for cloud configuration, and compliance. The company is also planning to build a modern logistics center to support its growing virtual and physical businesses. Grane says the company plans to work closely with Trend Micro to ensure that they can continue to build a highly secure organization.