Need Tips on Selling Security Expenditures to Upper Management? Radware Customers Can Help

Just the notion of having to sell upper management on investing in security seems counterintuitive. All the technological innovation in the world is only as good as the security protecting it. And it’s more than just protecting your own organization. Customers and business partners are relying on your ability to secure communications and data. Maintaining the best that cybersecurity has to offer is imperative. Without the best, you’re sitting on a ticking time bomb.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity often falls into the I’ll get around to it bucket. That mindset is dangerous, especially when you consider it’s estimated that a data breach, on average, costs an organization between $4 million and $5 million. That’s a lot of hard and soft costs. That’s a lot of damage.

Radware Customers Provide Helpful Suggestions

We once again turned to our trusted Radware customers to gain insights on the most pressing security issues of the day. Their responses are always valuable, as they offer empirical experience and live and breathe IT security every day. In this instance, we posed the question of how they convince management to invest in security solutions. As always, they shared several useful tips to consider when discussing cybersecurity investments:

“Today Cybersecurity is a key critical element for any enterprise. Every penny invested in Cybersecurity measures has a huge ROI in terms of safeguarding against ransomware and malware attacks.”

• Emphasize the potential risks: Conduct a thorough assessment of your organization’s current security posture. Make sure to identify vulnerabilities and potential consequences, including damage to reputation, loss of business, negative customer experiences, employee downtime, legal implications and data loss.
• Use real examples: Share examples of similar attacks faced by your organization or others in your industry to help illustrate the potential impact of a cyber-attack.
• Use Clear messaging: Avoid technical jargon and use language that is easily understood by all stakeholders.
• Talk about ROI:
  • Provide an estimation of potential risks in financial terms.
  • Share a detailed report outlining the expenses required to implement cybersecurity measures within your organization.
• Suggest Proofs of Concept (POCs): Emphasize the importance of proofs of concepts (POCs). Just remember that there’s a balance between selecting the best tools that have the least amount of impact to developers.

Overall, the key takeaway from our customers is that cybersecurity investments should be a top priority for your organization. The potential risks and consequences of not investing in cybersecurity far outweigh any potential savings or benefits that may come from delaying these investments.

“There is no alternate way! So we have to consider cybersecurity as the backbone of any kind of organization which is part of the international network.”

If you are challenged with securing support from upper management about security expenditures, reach out to the Radware cybersecurity experts here. They can provide you with all you need to support your key security initiatives. They would love to hear from you.

Here’s a tool that will help you sell the importance of investing in IT security —   Radware’s Business Impact Calculator. It provides an estimate of the potential financial losses your business may incur from an attack. It is based on industry, traffic volumes, revenue and infrastructure costs and is calculated as a per-industry average.