Security and Weathering the Economy
Posted on Fri, Jun 03, 2011
By Nigel Waterton, Director of Business Development
When I came to America many moons ago, a grizzled sales manager told me “Death, taxes and security - they are all economy resistant.”
I, like many, thought this was always true until the economy bubble burst and corporate security managers began investing in knee pads to defend their budgets to financially conscious CFO’s.
Next to landscaping, security has always been the first budget to be cut. According to one Vice President, “Successful security programs are always victims of their success with a ‘Well nothing has happened, so why do we need to keep spending money on security?’ type of attitude”.
In these times and under these conditions how does Security convey value? Does your company believe that no activity means you don’t need to improve your program?
Do you want to be one of the ‘next generation’ security leaders that know how to leverage the metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) your people, processes and technology produce on a daily basis?
Most security executives have unexploited and underleveraged information that can be meaningful and valuable to business executives who are attempting to navigate uncertain times. Getting to this information and properly articulating its value should be a core competency for security executives and their internal team and external service partners. If this was available, it would be appropriate to hold regularly scheduled meetings with the business leaders, including the financial organization, to review the metrics and how they are impacting the business.
If you would like to hold a brainstorming session around some of these ideas, please feel free to contact me. Optimization of your security organization is an opportunity to bridge the value gap and stimulate innovation for the future.