Aside from keeping an eye on the latest cyberthreats, IT leaders also have to keep their finger on the pulse of the budget process to ensure they are making the right investments and achieving the value they expect from their tools and services.
For many organizations, their relationship with the budget process can be best described as “survival mode.” We want to flip the script on that and help your team discover innovative ways to maximize your cybersecurity investments and uncover funding for critical managed services.
It’s time to move beyond surviving. It’s time to start thriving.
Are you using these strategies to maximize your IT and cybersecurity budget?
How often have you had this thought? “How can we be more cost-centric moving forward? If I can save money I will look like a hero, if I add $6k now, I will get the stink-eye!”
That’s a direct quote from one of our customers and a common challenge IT and infosec leaders share—balancing evolving needs of the business and the previously set budgets from the year before.
Let’s face it: No one likes the budget or business case development process. As we move into mid-year and pre-budget season, we thought we would share some best practices that have helped our customers move past this challenge and become “heroes.”
Let’s Get Creative
To truly maximize your IT and cybersecurity budget, it’s essential to find the right mix of creativity, skepticism, and forward-thinking.
Here are three approaches to consider:
Conduct Focused Assessments
Regularly evaluate your cybersecurity tech stack, tools, and licenses and the effectiveness of these current investments. Look for areas where you might be overspending and adjust accordingly.
Examples include:
- Unused or underutilized software licenses
- Optimizing cloud or storage usage
- Unnecessary hardware support services
- Redundant or legacy telecommunications services
- Contracts that can be renegotiated to reflect updated needs or terms
We worked with a financial services company to uncover almost $7,700 per month in savings by simply assessing their telecom infrastructure. That amounted to more than $1M in savings! The funds were then reallocated to strategic initiatives without having to request more budget. P.S. We’re hosting a webinar on this topic in June.
Adopt a Zero-Based Budgeting Approach
Each year, start from scratch and justify every item in the IT and security budget. This can help eliminate unnecessary spend and ensure funds are allocated to areas with the highest impact on productivity and security.
Marry that to a risk-based prioritization matrix, and you’re cooking with fire! Begin by mapping out critical assets and the most likely threats to these assets. This approach ensures that the most significant risks are addressed first. Use threat intelligence and historical data to guide your decisions.
Then allocate resources where they can reduce the most risk. High-impact areas should receive priority in budget allocation. This might mean investing more in advanced threat detection systems for your most sensitive data rather than broadly applying the same level of security to all areas.
Leveraging a vCISO or vCIO to work through your budget can help identify some new opportunities. A second pair of eyes never hurts.
Explore Alternative Funding Models
Look into options such as cybersecurity insurance or partnerships with other organizations for shared security services, which can spread out the costs while maintaining high standards of protection.
Your managed IT and security service provider may have cost-saving opportunities as well. For example, Logically has developed a relationship with Cysurance that may reduce cyber insurance premiums by 30 percent or more.
Once you’ve completed these reviews, it’s likely that you’ve identified some funds that can be reallocated to more critical items like enhancing managed service provider (MSP) support to strengthen your cybersecurity posture and operational efficiency.
By moving away from piecemeal or reactive budgeting practices and instead embracing a more strategic and flexible approach, your team can make your cybersecurity budget work harder and smarter for your organization.
This not only safeguards your assets against evolving threats but also positions your organization to thrive.
