Defining SASE at the Largest Consumer Electronics Chain in the Nordics

• By Reno Dokken
• Jun 26, 2025

Events like Black Friday are digital battlegrounds for retail IT teams with outdated IT systems. Legacy servers groan under unanticipated loads, inventory systems trail woefully behind sales, and point-of-sale (POS) stations lock up at critical moments. IT teams rush through war rooms, battling cascading failures across brittle infrastructure never intended to handle such extreme loads.

Elkjøp is the Nordics' largest consumer electronics retailer. with over 420 stores and 10,000 employees in four countries. As a market leader, Elkjøp must deliver seamless and consistent digital experiences, secure transactions, and fast operations, particularly during peak shopping seasons like Black Friday.

Modernizing IT to Keep Pace with Business Demands

Elkjøp's legacy IT infrastructure was impeding the business. The company was experiencing a severe IT infrastructure problem that prevented it from scaling, securing its operations, and facilitating modern retail needs. The classic hub-and-spoke MPLS network wasn't flexible enough to support our cloud-based retail operations.

Security was another major concern. Elkjøp manages over 860 security appliances across multiple vendors, which leads to fragmented security policies, operational inefficiencies, increased risk exposure, and slow response to threats and scalability. Our IT team grappled with other challenges as well, including:

● Slow network changes and lack of agility: IT wanted to build a network capable of keeping pace with rapid market changes and periods of high traffic. But with a legacy infrastructure, the team struggled to implement new services or security policies efficiently, which delayed innovation and threatened security. Simple network modifications took six weeks due to a lack of vendor coordination, ultimately slowing business operations. The inability to scale up or down easily made it difficult to adapt to seasonal demand variations.

● Legacy MPLS infrastructure hindered cloud adoption: IT built a cloud-based POS system utilizing cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, Internet connectivity, and multi-factor authentication that can run on personal devices. However, the legacy hub-and-spoke MPLS network was inflexible and optimized for the cloud. High maintenance costs and low bandwidth made it difficult to support cloud-based workloads like Kubernetes-based POS systems.

● Fragmented security stack caused operational issues: Elkjøp managed security devices from various vendors, including firewalls, load balancers, and storage infrastructure, leading to latency in troubleshooting and policy deployment. Inter-vendor collaboration for network upgrades and security patches was slow and inefficient. Furthermore, monitoring security threats across the entire infrastructure was challenging due to the absence of centralized visibility.

● Peak season challenges: Black Friday and holiday shopping seasons require extensive pre-season audits to maintain network stability. However, the lack of centralized controls made emergency visits to the stores unavoidable. As a result, IT personnel had to remain on call 24/7 and travel to stores to perform emergency repairs whenever network breakdowns occurred.

Realizing a need for agility, security, and efficiency in operations, Elkjøp sought a next-generation cloud-based solution. We selected a SASE cloud platform to shift from a network and security stack to a cloud-native, software-defined platform. Cato's convergence of networking and security on a single, integrated platform appealed to our requirements.

With a phased rollout to over 420 stores, Elkjøp's integration was rapid and trouble-free. Pre-configured SASE sockets were shipped directly to our stores, allowing non-IT personnel to set up connectivity with minimal technical input. The roll-out was zero-touch, with store managers performing the installation by simply following quick setup instructions, supported remotely by IT. The stores connected to Cato's private network via encrypted and secure tunnels. Elkjøp migrated all of its infrastructure within a few months without disrupting business.

Key Benefits in Choosing SASE:

If you are unfamiliar with SASE, it is a decentralized model sometimes referred to as a cybersecurity “mesh” and expected to reach $6.63 billion by 2032.

● Instant network changes: Network modifications now occur in seconds instead of weeks, enabling IT teams to respond to business needs in real time. Dynamic scalability ensures seamless operations during peak seasons.

● Unified security: The SASE platform consolidates next-gen firewalls (NGFW), intrusion prevention, TLS and other tools, reducing complexity and strengthening security posture with encrypted traffic inspection.

● Centralized control: The single-vendor SASE approach eliminates the need for multiple security and networking providers. IT teams can monitor and respond to threats with centralized visibility and management. Security policies are implemented faster, and networks can be scaled without vendor delays.

● Stress-free Black Friday: Built-in failover mechanisms and secondary link testing eliminated half of pre-season readiness checks, reducing IT workloads and operational stress. Automated failover and traffic re-routing ensured uninterrupted services during peak shopping times. The ability to centrally manage all locations eliminated the need for emergency store visits during rush season.

● Improved remote access: SASE-based remote access enables secure remote connectivity for employees. Developers now enjoy smooth, secure network access, which boosts efficiency and collaboration.

A Future-Proof Partnership

The transition from our old systems to a SASE cloud has been a game changer for Elkjøp, setting the company up for long-term growth in the dynamic retail market. Elkjøp found the operational speed and resilience it needed and can now spend more resources on innovation and refining consumer products.