JD Sports Fashion plc is a leading British-based global omnichannel retailer specialising in sports fashion apparel, footwear, and outdoor equipment. The company has operations in more than 40 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, and is part of the FTSE 100 Index.

Operating at this scale brings significant complexity. JD Sports runs a diverse technology environment that includes multi-cloud platforms, on-premise data centres, complex ERP systems, and OT/IoT environments. As a result, the organisation takes a broad approach to cybersecurity. It is not just seen as a technical or IT function, but considered part of overall business risk management, with strong emphasis on identity and the wider business risk.

A vendor by your side that you can trust

From the start, JD Sports looked for a security partner that could move beyond tooling and generic alerts, and instead focus on delivering real business outcomes. According to Alun Price, Group CISO, this meant working with a partner that was willing to take the time to deeply understand the business, along with what truly matters when it comes to protecting the JD Sports brand.

“The way mnemonic works is different from anyone else. They truly listen to the customer, and their knowledge and experience enables you to ask the right questions. They don’t just agree with us, they challenge us. Since they have truly taken the time to get to know us and our business, this provides an incredible value.”

“mnemonic cares about what is best suited for JD. They are not here to sell to us; they are here to support us.”

Security delivered by people who stay, grow, and care

A key differentiator for JD Sports has been the culture at mnemonic. Low employee turnover and fixed support teams secures continuity, and familiarity with the security team, customer environments and unique challenges.

Historically, mnemonic has always experienced low employee turnover. This is attributed to a strong focus on employee wellbeing, offering extensive training programs for our experts, and employees being given professionally rewarding assignments.

This is apparent in the mnemonic SOC. The SOC represents the core of the MDR delivery, and is second to none in the industry because of its size, technology and infrastructure. However, it is the people who really make it stand out; analysts receive training, mentoring, experience and development opportunities which both make them best in class and stay with mnemonic.

Rankings such as the Best Workplaces in Europe by GPTW also recognises mnemonic amongst their top workplaces the past eight years.

Actionable security insights, not alert noise

Drawing on broad experience with different cybersecurity vendors, JD Sports also highlights the importance of the quality of the alerts their security team gets from mnemonic.

Karl Heyes, Group Head of Cyber Defence, points out that one of the most tangible benefits for JD Sports has been the actionable alerts with recommendations that can be directly tied to security outcomes. Rather than overwhelming teams with large volumes of low-value alerts, mnemonic delivers prioritised, actionable tickets through their own security platform.

Operating across a complex technology stack, JD Sports also benefits from mnemonic’s vendor-neutral approach delivered through mnemonic’s own MDR portal. This ability to pivot between technologies and sources, and still provide actionable advice, has proven to be highly valuable.

Looking ahead: strengthening security together

Thomas Lea, Regional Sales Director UK at mnemonic, has been working with JD Sports from the beginning of the partnership. He explains that ensuring that the partnership continues to deliver value and be a good fit for both organisations is a main priority as we go forwards.

“We know our experts thrive in professionally rewarding and challenging projects like these, working across a complex global technology environment.”

“With a shared focus on business outcomes and building a deep expertise on their business risks and unique challenges, we are building a partnership for the future.”