Maturing Your Program with a Cyber Risk Management Platform

4 minute read

March 2023

by Julia Winer

Many organizations spread their cybersecurity budget between a variety of technologies, services and vendors: they may purchase one solution to monitor their network and another to handle evidence collection, racking up massive expenditures to ensure that each function is matched with the ideal technology. As companies reckon with an uncertain economic climate, however, this kind of a la carte budget-management becomes inefficient. Instead, many organizations have turned to cybersecurity management platforms, or individual software purchases that carry out multiple major functions, hoping to consolidate their expenditure while maintaining critical functionality. 

Instead of matching software-to-function on a one-to-one basis, this kind of consolidated expenditure ensures that each budget dollar goes as far as possible. Choosing and implementing a means taking stock of your requirements, the functionality your program needs to keep running, and the state of your current cyber practices. When done thoughtfully, consolidating your program into a single platform allows you to prioritize your operations and determine where growth is necessary. 

When opting into a single cybersecurity management platform, you can mature your program by evaluating your inefficiencies and automating processes where possible. Here are 3 steps to maturing your program with a cybersecurity management platform: 

1. Identify critical stakeholders, processes and technology 

Before consolidating your practices into a single cybersecurity management platform, you must assess your program as it currently exists. 

First, you must identify key stakeholders. Anyone who owns a cybersecurity control at your organization will play a part in the platform-change, so you’ll want to make a list of control owners and get them involved in the platform change early on. The earlier each control owner knows how the transition will impact their responsibilities, the smoother the transition will go. 

Second, you must identify which cybersecurity processes are critical to the organization. While all your processes serve one purpose or another, that doesn’t mean they were created equal. Some must be implemented quickly during the transition, so your organization doesn’t cease a critical function or create a major vulnerability. Others are lower-priority and can be postponed or discarded without a negative impact. 

Third, you must identify which cybersecurity technologies are currently critical to your organization. By listing the technologies currently being used by your team and the functions carried out by each, you can determine which of your critical processes are technology-dependent and must therefore be replaced within your cybersecurity management platform. Eventually, you will need to choose a platform that covers as many of these functions as possible. 

2. Determine your cyber requirements 

Once you’ve taken stock of your cybersecurity program, it’s important to determine what the new platform will need to accomplish to support the line-of-business: risk mitigation, revenue growth, mergers and acquisitions, customer retention, and compliance are all functions that cyber professionals value as much as the business unit. 

To determine the business’ cyber requirements, it’s helpful to start a conversation between cybersecurity and the relevant stakeholders where they determine:  

  • What the risk landscape will look like in the coming year 
  • Which regulatory changes are anticipated this year, and what updates will be necessary to stay compliant 
  • Whether the organization has any mergers, acquisitions, or new partnerships planned for the coming year 

By communicating early and often with the relevant stakeholders, you can ensure that your cybersecurity team resolves the problems that matter to the rest of the organization.  

3. Identify functionality needed to meet requirements 

Once you understand your team’s critical functions, the cyber developments necessary to stay on top of the year’s challenges, and the cybersecurity goals that best align with the line-of-business, you can determine what a cybersecurity management platform would have to be capable of to meet your needs. 

One exercise that might help identify essential platform functionality would be to identify a program function for each of the requirements listed above. For instance: 

  • If your team needs to deliver security summaries to the appropriate stakeholders, you’ll want a platform that has robust real time reporting. 
  • If your team needs to reduce the likelihood of security incidents, you’ll want a platform that enables continuous monitoring of your cyber risk landscape. 
  • If your team needs visibility into your issue remediation workflow, you’ll want a platform with an issue remediation suite that streamlines and documents each step of the remediation process. 
  • If your team needs to reduce the hours it spends gathering evidence, you’ll want a platform that automates evidentiary requests. 

Once you’ve listed the functions that a cybersecurity management platform must fulfill for your program to run smoothly, you have the knowledge necessary to make an informed purchasing decision. 

4. Identify a platform that covers your needed functionality 

When choosing a cybersecurity management platform, you’ll need to ensure that the software can match each of your critical functions, fits your budget, and provides opportunities for growth and maturation as you continue to develop your program. 

One cybersecurity platform that has all of the functionality listed above is ProcessUnity for Cybersecurity Risk Management (CPM), which consolidates all of the most critical cybersecurity functions into a streamlined, automated platform. By automating essential cybersecurity processes like threat reviews, risk evaluations, baseline assessments, and training program validation, ProcessUnity CPM can help your team deliver a better service more consistently and with fewer labor-hours. 

To learn more about making the case to purchase cyber technology, read our white paper, “Build a Business Case for a Cybersecurity Performance Management Solution.” 

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About Us

ProcessUnity is a leading provider of cloud-based applications for risk and compliance management. The company’s software as a service (SaaS) platform gives organizations the control to assess, measure, and mitigate risk and to ensure the optimal performance of key business processes. ProcessUnity’s flagship solution, ProcessUnity Vendor Risk Management, protects companies and their brands by reducing risks from third-party vendors and suppliers. ProcessUnity helps customers effectively and efficiently assess and monitor both new and existing vendors – from initial due diligence and onboarding through termination. Headquartered outside of Boston, Massachusetts, ProcessUnity is used by the world’s leading financial service firms and commercial enterprises. For more information, visit www.processunity.com.