Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 46 | Page 20

LATEST INTELLIGENCE 5 ARGUMENTS TO JUSTIFY YOUR IDENTITY SPEND PRESENTED BY Download whitepaper here S pending on secure infrastructure is vital to protect any company’s plans for revenue generation and business expansion. But when increasing focus and budget for security initiatives, CIOs and CISOs are faced with competing revenue- generating priorities across the business. identity spending organization-wide. By connecting security with each business driver, the organization as a whole is better positioned to succeed. And when it comes to identity spend – which today make up less than 9% of the average security budget, despite its potential to prevent the 80% of data breaches caused by compromised credentials – there’s often a communication gap between the value of security infrastructure and key business initiatives. Companies are always looking to lower their operational costs, and one key way to accomplish this is by making teams, processes, and tools more efficient so that they can focus on their core competencies. By adopting cloud technologies, an organization can offload maintenance costs from expensive legacy systems as well as the time spent on addressing system outages. This also sets IT teams up with a regular schedule for updates and maintenance that they can prepare for, without disrupting their day-to-day work. n Armed with an understanding of the following five key business drivers and how identity feeds into them, technology leaders can better shift the balance in their favor and make a stronger case for increased 20 INTELLIGENTCIO 1. Do more with less: Identity-driven cost reduction www.intelligentcio.com