‘Our customers are increasingly asking for a good VPN solution’

The importance of good cybersecurity is becoming clearer to more and more businesses. This is noticed by Johan de Haan, co-owner and Commercial Director at GTS Online. His company became the IT partner of Guardey, to allow clients to work more securely online. We asked him about the choice for Guardey, his vision on safe online working, and the needs of their customers.

“We are ISO 27001- and NEN7510-certified and offer a variety of security solutions for our customers,” de Haan explains. “At the same time, we are always looking for new ways to make cybersecurity more accessible, lower threshold, and even more enjoyable.” He points out that raising awareness among customers is the biggest challenge in his view to improving security.

GTS Online chooses Guardey

GTS Online offers customers ‘Digital Work Comfort’. De Haan explains: “We realize, manage and maintain digital workplaces for customers and we specialize in IT consultancy for specific issues. At the end of the line, we provide a tailor-made online workspace that must of course be secure.”

With Guardey, the company adds extra security to a wide palette of professional capabilities. “We have our own hardware in two data centers in the Netherlands, use Office 365 and Azure. We weigh for each customer what is necessary and what works best economically and functionally for that customer. The cybersecurity solution from Guardey is an addition to what we already offer.”

Safe online working

He notices that safe online working is getting more attention from more and more customers. “The problems often arise in the heat of the moment, but I hear more and more from customers that they are concerned about their connections, data storage and systems. This is due to the stories they hear from others, or in the news.”

This awareness among businesses must translate into employee behavior in the future. “Companies are becoming aware of the risks they face. SMEs understand that action is needed to keep cybercriminals at bay. Our customers, for example, actively ask for VPN tools and ways to train their employees. After all, it’s about employees being aware of the dangers and knowing how to behave more securely online.”

De Haan describes how Guardey fits well with previous initiatives that GTS Online took to make end users at customers more resilient. “During the corona time, we organized digital training sessions for 10 to 20 people at a time. In these, we explained about cybersecurity and offered concrete solutions to get started with.” In his opinion, Guardey connects well to this: “The gamification that you use is an extra trigger for end users to get started themselves. They don’t just tick a box for a mandatory action, but are challenged to do more. It’s a nice addition to the phishing tests we already do for customers, for example.”

Looking for a VPN solution

The fact that GTS Online uses gamification together with Guardey to train employees is usually not the reason for customers to improve their security. “I notice that especially the desire for a good VPN solution is alive among many of our customers,” De Haan explains. “We didn’t offer that solution yet, so we decided to do market research on the possibilities. That’s how we ended up with Guardey. An additional advantage: Guardey offers more than just the VPN solution we were looking for.” De Haan adds, “Because of the clever cooperation with SecureMe2, we can also respond to vulnerabilities that employees bring in themselves. And the fact that awareness can also be cultivated is a nice bonus.”

He explains that he always looks for pragmatic solutions for his customers, because the company itself also likes to work that way. “We found that pragmatic approach at Guardey. We think it’s very important that our suppliers handle the same way we do, so that we can confidently offer that to our customers.”

Responsive and driven

He especially appreciates the responsive character and the drive to want to move forward. “Of course we sometimes have questions and sometimes something doesn’t work right away as you expect. I then find it very pleasant that I get someone on the line right away, can explain in Dutch what is going wrong and that you guys start working on it.”

De Haan is therefore looking forward to a long collaboration. “At GTS Online we always want to add as much value as possible for our customers. In this case, this means that we like to be IT partner to offer Guardey as a solution. Conversely, we like to give feedback on what our customers experience and what they consider important, to help improve the solution where possible. In the end, we are all working towards a safe online environment. This is an important foundation for the digital work comfort that we guarantee our customers.”