CIOs juggle day-to-day responsibilities and develop strategy while staying alert for IT weaknesses that threaten to negatively affect their company. Nothing spells a CIO’s demise like being unprepared to mitigate unexpected tech failures. Corporate tech stumbles, be it a security breach, application outage, or a failed disaster recovery, can easily end up as an article in The Wall Street Journal.
It’s imperative for technology leaders to stay one step ahead of any potential trouble. A great way to ensure you’re receiving up-to-date, strategic advice is to enlist a trusted consultant to assist in developing plans and procedures that will mitigate or eliminate risks.
A large gap exists between identifying the need for a professional consultant and receiving the funds to hire assistance due to multiple factors. You might run into negative responses for a number of reasons:
- Budget problems: no funds are budgeted for security proofing.
- Business-oriented decision-makers fail to thoroughly analyze the risks involved when operating under lax security protocols.
- Decision-makers are unwilling to invest in security measures.
- Political tension and competition exists between departments—every vertical has funding needs and struggles to maintain budgeting priority.
Avoiding the urge to concede to other business priorities or downplay the importance of IT investments is a challenging task that every IT leader must undertake.
Quality data will guide strategic decision making and make your case for an increased budget. Evaluate the results of previous priorities in relation to the spending plan and use this information to defend and build on your organization’s IT strategic priorities.
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