I spotted some research from Forrester related to the previous story but more useful in the context of several others. Only 20% of respondents said their organization completely aligns with cybersecurity priorities and business outcomes. 60% of firms are willing to spend 6% or more of their operating profit to benefit from adopting an outcome-based approach for cybersecurity investments. And 50% of firms struggle to measure cybersecurity value and need help articulating the contribution of security to business outcomes.
In a recent Flexera survey, State of the Cloud, 82% — said managing cloud spending was their top cloud challenge, edging out security and lack of cloud expertise at 79% and 78%, respectively.
I see a trend – SoftwareOne’s survey says much the same, 93% of CIOs expecting IT budgets to increase in 2023, and 83% say they are under pressure to make their budgets stretch further than ever before
GoTo released its IT Priorities: 2023 Report. The company cites consolidation as the solution to enhanced productivity and cost savings, noting that 41% of businesses plan to switch vendors to reduce costs. And 83% of respondents consider consolidation of communication, collaboration, and IT management and support tools an important initiative of the year. 93% have completed, planned, or are in process with these consolidation efforts.
65% of organizations say they saw an increase in the IT workload in the past year.
Insider did some analysis of the big tech layoffs and looked back. The researchers noted that while those big tech companies grew, they didn’t become more efficient, and revenue per employee declined.
Why do we care?
Let’s tell a story here… Organizations often don’t have alignment between security and business outcomes. Just as we’re getting better about security, business leaders are now slightly more concerned about cutting costs and thinking software will help them. Business leaders cite efficiency but are just trimming up the bloat they allowed during good times.
Doing more with less is the theme. This is cyclical – I expect the money spigots to turn back on when confidence in the economy matches more of reality. We’ve been near a recession for ages that never seems to come, but until there’s a bit more buoyancy, there will be this cost sensitivity.
And how to overcome it? Business outcomes. It’s today’s theme, and it’s larger than security alone. Sharpen your blade on how you link back to a specific result.