Security Process Optimization (SPO): The First Step in Strategic Planning
Posted on Wed, Nov 10, 2010
When you look to purchase or make changes to your organization’s security, what do you do first? How do you determine what you need? With all the various vendors, how do you know which one is the right fit for your company? How do you measure their ability to execute? What about the cost? How will you fit that into your budget? Where do you start?
ASG understands how difficult it is to implement as well as maintain a deliberate and sustainable performance plan for your organization’s security systems. It is also difficult to measure performance over time without the information technology framework for doing so.
However, the thousands you have spent to-date could and should be measured to create a baseline of performance. Your targeted performance should be protected, maintained and regularly measured to sustain that performance or improve it over time. As well, the data you collect will provide you the intelligence you need to create long term life cycle replacement strategies. And if this performance assessment, execution strategy and measurement are done correctly, then every dollar spent in this effort will return 10x through the optimization you realize. It is not as difficult as you may imagine.
However, we realize that most of you express a position that looks like this quote from one Security Manager:
“We have a hard time justifying the purchase of a system, much less an assessment or long term maintenance plan. As well, we find that fixing it when it breaks is cheaper than a maintenance plan.”
This is legitimate if you are:
• Prepared to accept the failure of a critical component at the time of need
• Prepared to accept the lack of measurement of system performance over time
• Prepared to accept the lack of measurement between the tool and the role of the people and the process when and where the tools are used
• Prepared to take a chance on compliance, regulatory audits, or lawsuits
To learn more:
We started a discussion on SPO with an independent assessment by certified security professionals in the ASG offered white paper ”The Cost Of Failure”. ASG believes that failure is not an option for any of us.
Also, Security Process Optimization was recently featured in Business Solution magazine with the article, "A New Approach to Security Integration." You can also download our SPO brochure for more information and to discover if your organization qualifies.