Six Consecutive Years on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 List—What Does it Mean?

Earlier today we proudly announced that eSentire was named to the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list—a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America—for the sixth year in a row.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that being included in this list for six consecutive years is a rare achievement—owing to the challenge of sustaining a high rate of growth over the long term, subject to the vagaries of economic swings, hype cycles, competition and other factors.

To put it in perspective, consider that:

• In the last six years, fewer than 1,700 companies have been named to the list at least once; for a little more than half (around 850), a singular appearance across six years is all they achieved
• Fewer than 500, less than 30 percent, made the list in any two of the six years
• Fewer than 200, about 11 percent, were named to the list in any three of the years
• Around 90, just over 5 percent, earned inclusion in any four of the years
• Fewer than 50, about 2.6 percent, made the list in any five of the six years

And only a tiny fraction—roughly 10 companies—in the 2020 list were included for each of the last six years.

That’s worth saying again: out of the almost 1,700 companies that appeared in any of the last six Deloitte Technology Fast 500 lists, eSentire is part of a very select group that has earned inclusion for six years in a row.

A mission-driven culture

Our inclusion in this year’s list brings us tremendous pride. Growing 128% year-over-year is no small feat, especially on the heels of five preceding years of compounding growth.

Any operations professional will attest that maintaining high relative growth rates becomes more challenging the larger an organization becomes. Growing quickly and sustainably requires firing efficiently and effectively on all cylinders, and bottlenecks or neglect in any one area can throttle the growth engine. The bigger a company gets, the harder it is to keep everyone aligned.

At eSentire, our mission-driven culture and our team’s laser focus on safeguarding our customers’ businesses is that North Star that drives all our decisions.

That’s why not only do we attract new customers, but—more importantly—we retain them, by doing what they hire us to do: providing around-the-clock protection for their business against cyberthreats.

Continuous innovation

In practical terms, delivering on our mission manifests in continued investment and innovation in three broad domains:

• People: Recruiting and retaining top-notch talent across the organization, and providing them with the resources they need to succeed
• Technology: Developing, acquiring, and applying the advanced technologies needed to enable our people and power our Atlas platform
• Processes: Developing and adhering to disciplined workflows that deliver effective results, efficiently and repeatably

At eSentire, we apply this philosophy of advancement and enablement across every business function. That’s why year-after-year the whole organization works in tandem—in true synergy—to enable the growth that has been recognized by Deloitte these past six years.

An unfortunate truth

But I’m afraid it’s not all rosy.

The reason that eSentire—the category leader in Managed Detection and Response—is able to grow at such high and sustained rates points to the troublesome reality that cyberthreats are not only widespread, but that they’re also enjoying their own remarkable growth.

According to Gartner’s 2020 Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response Services, Gartner has observed “a 44 percent growth in end users’ inquiries into MDR services during the past 12 months.” The firm anticipates that “by 2025, 50 percent of organizations will be using MDR services for threat monitoring, detection, and response functions that offer threat containment capabilities.”

This growth is driven by a combination of general problems—for instance, all organizations are potential victims, containment time is crucial, and the threat landscape is constantly changing—and specific cybersecurity challenges, including:

• The attack surface is increasing and the perimeter is dissolving
• Most cybersecurity technologies/solutions are hard to use
• There is a severe shortage of cybersecurity experts
• Security is increasingly a big data problem
• Adversaries effectively combine skilled attackers and advanced technology

MDR addresses and overcomes each of these problems, but only when the MDR provider is capable and is committed to continually evolving.

Ultimately, being included in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list once again doesn’t change what we do or how we do it; however, the inclusion is welcome recognition that when it comes to what we do (safeguarding our customers) and how we do it (effectively, efficiently and sustainably), eSentire is in a league of our own.