Cybersecurity – You True Competitive Advantage
The world has changed. Half a century ago, a businesses’ biggest fear was thieves breaking into their front door. Today they have to deal with what seems like something from the pages of science fiction thrillers. Nefarious hackers in the dark corners of the world, sneaking into their businesses through information systems, stealing their most valuable assets – their data. If it wasn’t for all the stories of data breaches from high-profile organizations, decimating their brand reputation, and leaving them liable to monstrous lawsuits, it would be hard to take it seriously, but the truth is, it’s real, and most organizations feel horribly unprepared to deal with it.
Of course, it’s not their fault. After all, most CEO’s have never been trained in school – or the workforce – on how to deal with these threats. Even most in-house technology experts are chasing their tails trying to catch up. In fact, if the average CTO committed to focus on this, they would be told to get to work and focus on other issues. And while they do their best to confront this issue head-on, how can they compete with the cyber hackers that have all day to think of new ways to access their data?
Good news. There is a way to combat this growing threat simply, and for those who do it right, there’s actually a substantial silver lining. See, people want to work with organizations where they know their data will be safe. Also, they know most organizations are incapable of doing just that. So, if you manage this issue head on, and message your above-average ability to do this, it can become your competitive advantage, resulting in increased prices, customer retention, leads and closure rates. The end-result is substantial increase in business profits over your competitors.
The Harsh Reality
The cyber breaches of late have left regulatory bodies across the globe no choice but to impose rules and mandates on organizations that control all types of data. It’s a change that has needed to happen, after all, people are losing their identities and being frauded all across the country. But unfortunately, CEO’s and CTO’s have been left in a tail-spin, overwhelmed, as they try to make sense of the mountain of new requirements.
This has led to organizations implementing a good enough approach that is compliant on a surface level, but leaves their customers and their business futures vulnerable.
The good news is that it doesn’t need to be this way. There is no need to re-invent the wheel or just try to figure it out. Just like any other business practice, today there are many organizations that specialize in offering you cyber security in a box, all you have to do is make sure you pick the right one. Simply stated, you just need to learn how to pull back the curtain and make the right cyber security implementation for your business, and best of all, if you do it right, your customers will love you for it.
Jarrod – a CEO who “Get’s it”
When Jarrod, the CEO of a growing technology company in the SaaS space came to me, he and his incredibly skilled IT team where just about to give up. They felt inundated with compliance and regulatory demands and struggled to see how they could get in front of it. Jarrod highlighted he didn’t even know what they were supposed to audit and was worried he’d fall victim to a breach that would send his business into a tail-spin. Jarrod had a mountain of challenges, and even worse, he didn’t even know where to begin. Even more daunting, he had an overworked, under skilled I.T. personnel who simply couldn’t keep up or keep pace with emerging cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance
I helped him understand that he didn’t have to re-invent the wheel and that, like any other part of his business, best practices have already been created to make implementation a much easier process, as long as he knew how to make the right choice. On top of that, I helped him understand that by implementing these practices correctly and messaging it correctly to his prospects and current base, Jarrod could use that as a major success factor over his competition to secure new business and ensure customer retention.
Within a matter of weeks, I worked with Jarrod and his team to implement a fully customized and seamless cyber security plan for his business, including all the best practices. Today he doesn’t have to worry about cybersecurity, data privacy, and regulatory compliance like he did in the past. Jarrod has been also been able to use his cyber security strength to position himself on top of many of his competitors in the market place. What was once a huge concern for Jarrod is now something he can use as a way to driving acquisition growth and increasing profits. The best part is, he didn’t need to do a thing.
How MSSPs Can Leverage Cybersecurity for Trust and Massive Growth
As a Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), you’ve got clients, but you want more, which means you’re more than likely competing with other MSSPs offering similar services and going after similar clients. The end result is competing on price. Stop! Growing your business is not about competing on pricing alone, it’s about offering new, innovative products and services. And it’s about using cybersecurity, data privacy, and regulatory compliance as your competitive advantage.
Here’s the good news, for MSSPs that can develop these products and services – and take them to market (which is actually quite easy!), you’ll experience real growth and long-term revenue streams. How do I know this? Because I help companies every day in leveraging cybersecurity as their true competitive advantage.
It’s no surprise that the basic element of trust in today’s world of security is good cybersecurity measures. Sounds easy, but many MSSPs miss the boat on this. How so? Their organizational message with their website, product brochures, sales talk – and much more – is often void of the true message of cybersecurity. Remember something very important as an MSSP. Your clients – and prospects – many not come out and say it, but security is paramount – absolutely critical – when it comes to choosing an MSSP. Cybersecurity – or even at a higher level, let’s just call it “security” – that’s the first and fundamentally – most important trust factor.
And what is security, really? It’s about everything that falls under the large, expansive umbrella of “Information Security”. It’s about strong access controls. It’s about backing up data securely. It’s about having incident response measures in place if a breach were to occur. It’s about dozens of other fundamental security practices that MSSPs should be employing – if they want to secure and grow their business.
How one CEO Turned Cybersecurity into Profits
Marcus is CTO of a growing Managed Security Services (MSS) business focusing primarily on organizations using cloud services. With hundreds of clients needing assistance with annual cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance requirements, Marcus and his team were struggling to keep up with a constant stream of requests from demanding clients. Marcus’ staff was spending precious man-hours fulfilling client demands instead of focusing on his business. He was desperately looking for a structured process that was efficient, yet also gave his clients exactly what they needed.
I worked with Marcus in re-structuring his organization’s entire outlook on cybersecurity, data privacy, and regulatory compliance. Within months, Marcus’s team was up and running with an all-new set of solutions & services (7 to be exact!) for his growing client base. Marcus’ team was able to spend the vast majority of their time doing what they’re good at, and that’s securing their clients’ infrastructure, while also providing critical cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance needs for their clients’ demanding reporting needs. It was a win-win.
With new solutions in place for his clients, Marcus was able to secure his environment, protecting not only his data, but his clients. As clients began to realize the true value of Marcus’ security framework, they sought additional services from Marcus and his team. Marcus has been able to grow his business immensely, but more important, provide industry leading security controls for securing his data, and his clients.
