If not, they should. When it comes to running a small business and managing IT costs, tracking the right metrics and benchmarking your IT is the key to driving efficiency and productivity. Using data like cybersecurity metrics, you can make more intelligent decisions about your IT performance and find better ways to manage costs while growing your business and giving your staff the technology (and tech-contingency awareness) they need.
Why Should You Track IT Benchmarking Metrics?
Your IT is critical to the growth and performance of your business. Tracking IT benchmarking metrics, therefore, is an important part of the IT activities that are working (or aren’t working) so that you can continuously improve.
Specifically, tracking IT benchmarking metrics as part of your small business performance KPIs will help you:
Beyond performance, measuring your IT department’s contribution to your business is a positive step towards raising its profile with your stakeholders and in the boardroom. With a handful of metrics at your disposal, you can demonstrate to anyone – potential investors, clients, and other stakeholders – exactly what the IT brings to the business, and lay the groundwork for increased IT investment or a new IT strategy.
Your IT benchmarking metrics should be easy to collect, and they should align with your broader business goals. There is no point in tracking something that doesn’t benefit the entire business, relates to a single event, or that you can’t use to paint a picture of how the business is performing overall.
Most Companies Fail at Cyber Security Metrics
With over 400 global business and security executives participating in a benchmark survey called The 2017 State Of Cybersecurity Metrics Annual Report, more than half of respondents scored an “F” or “D” grade when evaluating their efforts to measure their cybersecurity investments and performance against best practices.
Based on internationally accepted standards for security embodied in ISO 27001, as well as best practices from industry experts and professional associations, the Security Measurement Index benchmark survey provides a comprehensive way to define how well an organization is measuring the effectiveness of its IT security.
Findings from this Cyber Security Metrics survey include:
Failures in planning
Failures in performance
In general:
Most survey respondents do not feel confident about how they are measuring the value of their cybersecurity investments, and 80% stated that they are not fully satisfied with the metrics available.
As a Complement to Cyber Security Metrics
Here are some other valuable IT benchmarking metrics that we recommend tracking along with your cyber security metrics:
You may think your business doesn’t need a formal, documented IT security policy based on cogent cybersecurity metrics. After all, documentation and worrying about information security is just for big unwieldy mega-corporations, right?
Wrong.
Let’s take a look at some findings from the UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017. According to the survey, 45 percent of small businesses have experienced cybersecurity breaches and attacks in the last 12 months, and the average cost of these breaches is $1,837 USD.
But, that’s generally just for starters. Take a look at the actual statistics on the average cost of a serious, downtime-causing data breach for some sobering reflection.
And, despite all this:
Whether your business is big or small, IT security breaches aren’t an ‘if’ but a ‘when’. That means your business can no longer afford not to secure itself with a policy, at the very least.
Why, though? What does a strong IT and cybersecurity policy actually do for your company?
As we will show…quite a lot.
#1. It Refines Your Security Practices
When it comes to security, stabs in the dark or speculation are not enough. Your business needs a carefully crafted, written security policy because it will better organize and regulate your security processes. (Krantz can help you here.)
#2. It Empowers You, Office-Wide.
Does your entire staff know how to choose a strong password? Do they know how to detect a phishing scam? Do they know what warning signs to look for on a compromised website? Can you be sure of that?
The cyber attacker’s toolkit contains scams that deliberately try to trick your less tech-savvy employees. Give those employees written guidelines and they’ll be informed and ready to face the threats your business faces. (Krantz provides security awareness training that can and will help here.)
#3. It Minimizes Downtime.
If an attacker manages to breach your business, you’ll have a written plan ready and in place that can address it. Your team will know who to alert, how to respond and how to minimize any disruptions their colleagues might face with our complete network security defenses.
#4. It Helps You Stay Compliant.
If you want to avoid fines and business setbacks, you need to pay attention to regulations like the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Use your cybersecurity metrics and IT security policy to nail down the specifics of these regulations; then, outline your requirements, set out how you’ll fulfill them, and guarantee your business’s ongoing compliance.
This focus on compliance will also help in securing business. Big clients like assurances that you comply with regulation and have processes for securing their data; your policy will show that.
Let Krantz Help You Implement Strong Cyber Security Metrics and Policies
Businesses across the industry spectrum turn to Krantz Secure Technologies for managed IT security services in New York City that include stronger cybersecurity metrics and policies as part of their KPIs, so give us a call right away at (212) 286-0325 or send an email to Sales@KrantzSecure.com to get started.