Case Study: Primetals Technologies achieves a secure, cloud-first hybrid workplace and 35% infrastructure cost reduction with Zscaler

Primetals Technologies Creates a Secure Hybrid Workplace with the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange

Primetals Technologies, a global leader in metallurgical plant and steel production with 7,500+ employees, needed to modernize a data-center–centric security stack that couldn’t scale for a cloud-first transformation. Legacy firewalls and VPNs created performance bottlenecks for a geographically dispersed, hybrid workforce—especially after a surge in remote work—prompting a network redesign to support direct-to-internet connectivity and SD-WAN.

The company replaced on‑premises appliances with the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange (ZIA, ZPA, ZDX), moved to SD‑WAN direct‑to‑internet, and displaced VPNs with zero‑trust access. The result: secure access for 7.5K users, shutdown of multiple data centers, roughly 35% lower infrastructure costs, higher employee satisfaction (4.53/5), fewer help‑desk tickets, and seamless work‑from‑anywhere performance.

Primetals Technologies

Ralph Deleja-Hotko

Head of Backend and Cloud Solutions