SASE Maturity Gap
Professional Security Magazine, Saturday, January 24th, 2026
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) has quickly become one of the most talked‑about frameworks in enterprise networking and security, says Dave McGrail, Head of Business Consultancy at Xalient.
By converging wide‑area networking with cloud‑delivered security services, SASE promises to simplify infrastructure, strengthen resilience, and enable organisations to support increasingly distributed workforces. Yet, despite the hype, the reality is that most organisations are still at the beginning of their SASE journey.
A recent survey undertaken by Xalient reveals that only 7pc of respondents globally report having fully optimised, proactive, and business‑aligned SASE capabilities. The vast majority remain in early or tactical stages, where deployments are fragmented, under‑leveraged, and often disconnected from the broader business strategy. This gap between aspiration and execution highlights the need for a structured, cross-functional approach to take organisations looking to implement SASE on a journey towards maturity.