There is one inevitability in life and that is change. There is always going to be change and it is sometimes going to happen when you least expect it. This change can take many forms from employees to your market. I read the seminal work in management theory at the time, it was entitled “in search of excellence.” And it was an excellent book. I learned a lot from it.
Its basic premise was that they would study the top 10 most productive, profitable and forward-thinking companies of the time, this was the early 1980’s. So it had companies like Kodak, Delta Airlines, Xerox, a real who’s who of the time.
The Result?
But you look 20 years down the road and none of those companies are a leader in their industry. Several have even gone out of business. What happened? What has always happened, there was tremendous turmoil and change over time. Some companies could keep up and some could not. Many fell so far behind that they could not even stay in existence.
One company that shines above and has responded change amazingly well, though it took it some time to figure it out is IBM. They were a leader in mainframe data processing at the time, and now they are a leader in intelligent IT services. A huge change with a lot of pain along the way.
Cybersecurity is the same thing but even more. Your cybersecurity posture is going to change radically in the next 5 years not 10 or 20 years. And you need to be changing with it. It is the nature of the beast. The cybercriminals are always coming up with something new to defeat your current defenses.
Be The Change
Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Such a powerful statement for any part of life. But in cybersecurity it is particularly so. Your ability to lead the change in your organization to be the change agent is critical.
In addition, you need to be working with key personnel in your organization to be your change agents. Who can you identify right now who would be a leader among your staff to lead change efforts? Who would be the key executives that make change happen or could potentially make change happen? Cultivate these key personnel and move them to the forefront of your efforts to stay ahead of your cybersecurity posture. Be the change before the hackers force you to change.