New global research from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and Palo Alto Networks has found that surveyed organisations are facing security complexity challenges as they juggle an average of 83 different security solutions from 29 vendors.
It also shows that seven out of 10 surveyed companies with a high degree of security platformisation report their cybersecurity investments have helped business outcomes such as operational efficiencies and revenue generation.
In the study, “Capturing the cybersecurity dividend: How security platforms generate business value,” more than half (52%) of surveyed executives note fragmentation of security solutions is limiting their ability to deal with cyber threats, but 75% of organisations that have embraced security platformisation agree that better integration across security, hybrid cloud, AI and other technology platforms is crucial.
The analysis suggests the trend of adding more solutions to combat evolving security threats is contributing to inefficiency – impacting both performance and the bottom line – while moving to a platformized security approach can help businesses achieve reduced response times and costs without sacrificing security efficacy.
Cybersecurity Complexity is a Daunting Reality
Increased digital interconnectedness expands attack surfaces and can create new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and harder to defend against, while AI is being used by both defenders and attackers, creating a race in cybersecurity capabilities.
In an evolving threat landscape, surveyed executives estimate security fragmentation and complexity costs their organisations an average of 5% of their annual revenue. For a $20-billion annual revenue company, that’s a $1-billion cost to the business in aggregate. Tally the costs of security incidents, lost productivity, failed digital transformations, stalled AI initiatives, loss of customer trust and reputational damage and the numbers add up.
“Organisations continue to be challenged with updating their security posture to address new threats, while simultaneously being pressed to reduce complexity and decrease spend,” says Mark Hughes, global managing partner for cybersecurity services at IBM. “Security executives need to enable innovation, protect assets and derive value from their cybersecurity investments to help their organisations thrive and further their business goals.”
Karim Temsamani, president: next generation security at Palo Alto Networks, adds: “We have seen the positive impacts of adopting a platformised approach to security, and the benefits it delivers to organisations. In today’s AI-fueled world, strong partnerships are more essential than ever.
“IBM and Palo Alto Networks are aligned on a common vision of creating better outcomes for our customers – whether in value, operational, or security … and platformisation accomplishes all of them. This isn’t just about improving fragmentation today, it’s about enabling better outcomes for the future.”
Key insights from surveyed business leaders include:
- 52% of executives say complexity is the biggest impediment to their cybersecurity operations;
- 80% agree they face pressure to reduce the cost of security, and 41% say security fragmentation has driven up procurement costs;
- Four out of five non-platform organisations say their security operations cannot effectively deal with the sheer quantity of threats and attacks;
- 80% of platformisation adopters say they have full visibility into potential vulnerabilities and threats; and,
- For platformised organisations, mean time to identify (MTTI) and mean time to contain (MTTC) security incidents are shorter by an average of 72 and 84 days, respectively.
Enhancing Businesses with Platformisation
In today’s world, the research finds effective security requires platformisation.
Consolidating multiple tools into a unified platform not only bolsters security posture but enables organisations to experience nearly 4-times better return on investment (ROI) from their cybersecurity investments, leading to revenue generation and increased operational efficiencies.
When it comes to AI, a platform approach can also enable an organization to better ingest and analyze data to deliver actionable insights.
With 90% of surveyed executives expecting to scale, optimise or innovate with AI within the next two years, integrating AI into their platforms can play a critical role in advancing their security preparedness.
For example, accelerating adoption of agentic AI for security and tapping platformization for fewer investment cycles; or, using platformization to create the common governance needed to deliver the AI capabilities shaping the future.
By adopting a platformisation approach, businesses can align technologies, drive innovation, and prioritize security as a core business requirement.