Best practices on advising customers to see today’s challenges as new opportunities
Cybersecurity is one of the top concerns for businesses across the UK. In fact, cybersecurity is ranked the third most important business challenge by half of respondents, according to our recent research The UK cybersecurity landscape: challenges and opportunities.
This isn’t a surprise, especially as we’ve seen renowned organisations such as the BBC, the NHS, and Royal Mail targeted and largely disrupted. From loss of sensitive data and legal fines to reputation and customer trust damage, the repercussions of cyberattacks are numerous and devastating.
To fight cyber threats, many organisations are adopting a big collection of security tools, creating an overwhelming flow of security alerts. This becomes an employee issue, with security teams reporting alert fatigue, making it harder to identify the real incidents. The never-ending wave of alerts can lead to another major issue: burnout, which is contributing to increases in employee turnover.
What’s surprising is that we found British organisations are sitting on unspent security budgets—suggesting businesses aren’t making full use of their resources. Realistically, security partners need to help customers realign their expectations with their business’s security strategy.
But what can partners do to help fix this? It all starts by helping customers see today’s challenges as new opportunities:
Consultative sales opportunity:
Channel partners should provide guidance to customers on how to best use their security allocated resources. Our research found that, on average, more than a quarter (27%) of allocated security budgets were unused in 2022. This shows how many UK businesses aren’t making full use of their own resources, making it difficult for decision-makers to build a proactive strategy.
Instead, the unspent budget could be invested in cybersecurity tools that help manage real signs of attacks and fix vulnerabilities. This means partners need to help customers move away from purchases that are just IT for the sake of IT, and focus on efficient solutions that solve real problems. This concept is especially important in the current economy, where customers are scrutinising budgets while also looking to get the most out of their current solutions.
Partners and vendors will need to work together to demonstrate how they deliver value to customers, while also extracting more outcomes from their existing investments. By collaborating this way, partners can identify additional opportunities and new routes for revenue growth, rooted in helping organisations solve their most pressing security problems.
2. Increased efficiency opportunity:
We found that 61% of IT decision-makers reported that they or a member of their cybersecurity team had experienced burnout due to cybersecurity risk management. Part of this is due to unnecessary alerts, with 52% saying they spend too much time dealing with them.
Solutions based on tailored, built-in automation processes reduce these unnecessary alerts, and so improve IT teams’ work-life balance without compromising on security. This eases potential burnout and ends in better protection from cyberattacks.
With that in mind, partners need to provide guidance to their customers on the best solutions that prioritise alerts to ensure actual threats are raised and dealt with, resulting in increased efficiency and less pressured IT workforce.
3. Boosted ROI opportunity:
Businesses might be failing to spend their cybersecurity budget because they aren’t seeing a return on investment (ROI) from cybersecurity products and services fast enough. Partners can help overcome this by working with customers to ensure that products are launched quickly and provide value from day one.
In the current economic environment, where customers are trying to sweat their assets more than ever before, cybersecurity partners need to make sure their client relationships are fructuous and tailored. They should provide guidance on where, their customers have gaps in both their tech stack, and from an operational and human perspective.
A change in mindset and attention towards key areas of investment can provide useful guidance for those looking to improve security strategies and efficiencies.
Bio of the author: Chris Waynforth (pictured) is the General Manager & VP of International Business at Expel. Chris is leading Expel’s expansion in EMEA.
