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Jan 13

Gartner's 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

Gartner’s 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

Gartner's 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

Fifteen cybersecurity categories are growing up to three times faster than the overall market, capturing $48.7 billion in new spending by 2029.

That’s nearly half of the $98.4 billion the entire security market will add over the next four years. Cloud Security Posture Management leads the pack at 29.36% CAGR. Cloud Access Security Brokers follow at 24.81%.

Enterprises are fundamentally restructuring their security budgets, and the driver is brutal in its simplicity. Organizations now manage an average of 112 SaaS applications across multiple cloud providers. 82% of misconfigurations are caused by human error, according to Exabeam’s analysis. And Gartner estimates 99% of cloud security failures through 2025 will be the customer’s fault, primarily from these misconfigurations. Manual oversight breaks under this kind of scale. Enterprises are responding by investing in automation that manages what people can’t across hundreds of cloud accounts, thousands of APIs, and millions of attack vectors.

Gartner’s 4Q25 update delivers the clearest signal yet about where enterprise security budgets are heading. The overall information security market grows from $213.5 billion in 2025 to $311.9 billion by 2029 at 10.03% CAGR. These fifteen high-growth categories are expanding at 10.30% to 29.36% CAGR, capturing investment dollars at rates that dwarf legacy security spending patterns.

What makes these categories different

Every high-growth category eliminates manual bottlenecks that break under cloud-native workloads. CSPM scans configurations continuously. CASB provides visibility into unauthorized SaaS usage. ZTNA verifies every connection rather than trusting the network location. With 79% of organizations using multiple cloud providers, according to Spacelift’s research, manual processes create mathematical impossibilities.

These technologies prevent problems rather than clean up after them. CSPM catches misconfigurations before breaches. ZTNA eliminates the attack surface that VPNs create. Tokenization protects data even when systems get compromised. Security teams are finally getting ahead of threats instead of constantly playing catch-up.

And the ROI is quantifiable. IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report shows organizations using AI and automation extensively save $1.9 million per breach and reduce breach lifecycles by 80 days. U.S. breach costs average $10.22 million. These investments pay for themselves with a single prevented incident—a calculation CFOs understand.

Gartner's 4Q25 Information Security forecast shows 15 categories capturing half of all new security spending through 2029

The 15 categories reshaping enterprise security

1. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) — 29.36% CAGR — $4.68B → $12.76B

CSPM platforms scan infrastructure continuously across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, automatically remediating misconfigurations before they become breaches. The 82% human error rate isn’t going to improve through training. Organizations managing 100+ cloud accounts need automation. CSPM adds $8.09 billion in new spending by 2029, the single largest dollar contribution among high-growth segments.

2. Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) — 24.81% CAGR — $2.30B → $5.58B

Here’s the brutal reality. Enterprises average 112 SaaS applications, but shadow IT accounts for 42% of all applications per JumpCloud’s data. IT stays blind to roughly 78 apps out of an average 187-app environment. The damage? 65% of shadow IT deployments result in data loss, and 52% lead to breaches, according to Mimecast research. CASBs restore visibility and control, growing to $5.58 billion by 2029.

3. Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) — 21.95% CAGR — $2.48B → $5.43B

ZTNA replaces the VPN model with application-specific access controls. Instead of network-level access, it provides application-specific connections verified for every request. Gartner predicts 70% of new remote access deployments will use ZTNA by 2025, up from less than 10% at the end of 2021. And 65% of companies plan to retire VPNs within one year per Cybersecurity Insiders data. This represents a wholesale rethinking of secure access. The perimeter-based model is dying. Good riddance.

4. Threat Intelligence — 21.73% CAGR — $2.58B → $5.69B

Modern threat intelligence platforms fuse telemetry from open-source intelligence, dark-web monitoring, vendor feeds, and internal logs. Machine learning prioritizes indicators based on organizational relevance. IBM data shows organizations integrating threat intelligence reduce detection and escalation costs while cutting incidents by 30%. The market reaches $5.69 billion by 2029 as enterprises shift from passive threat feeds to automated response integration.

5. Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) — 21.53% CAGR — $5.98B → $13.11B

Traditional endpoint security can’t protect containers that spin up and vanish in seconds. Serverless functions executing for milliseconds? Legacy tools weren’t designed for that. CWPP solutions instrument workloads directly at the kernel or hypervisor level, monitoring system calls, file access, and network connections in real-time. The 21.53% CAGR reflects the rapid shift toward microservices and Kubernetes. As workloads migrate into container clusters, protecting them becomes a survival-level priority.

6. Consent and Preference Management — 20.22% CAGR — $0.81B → $1.64B

GDPR fines surpassed €5.88 billion by January 2025, according to DLA Piper’s annual survey. California’s CCPA penalties keep climbing. The California Privacy Protection Agency recently fined Todd Snyder $345,178 for inadequate opt-out and privacy request processes. Manual consent workflows can’t meet regulatory deadlines across jurisdictions. Automated platforms centralize preferences across web, mobile, and API endpoints while providing auditable logs for regulators.

7. Subject Rights Request (SRR) Automation — 14.26% CAGR — $1.24B → $2.01B

When users demand “delete my data,” these platforms automate orchestration across internal systems and third-party vendors. Privacy laws grant individuals rights to access, correct, and delete personal data with strict compliance timelines. SRR automation prevents the penalties that result from manual processing failures at scale, especially as more jurisdictions implement data privacy regulations.

8. Network Detection and Response (NDR) — 13.44% CAGR — $2.15B → $3.37B

NDR platforms establish behavioral baselines using statistical analysis and machine learning. When anomalies appear (unusual lateral movement, data exfiltration attempts, command-and-control traffic), they raise alerts or automatically isolate systems. The mindset shift matters here. Rather than hoping to prevent all attacks, sophisticated organizations invest in rapid detection that minimizes damage when attackers inevitably breach perimeters. Prevention alone isn’t sufficient anymore.

9. Vulnerability Assessment — 13.02% CAGR — $3.48B → $5.60B

Quarterly vulnerability scans are obsolete in CI/CD pipelines deploying multiple times daily. Modern assessment platforms provide continuous scanning integrated with exploit intelligence to prioritize patches based on real-world risk. DevOps teams need vulnerability detection that keeps pace with their deployment cadence. Anything less creates unacceptable exposure windows.

10. Tokenization — 12.68% CAGR — $1.34B → $2.11B

Tokenization replaces sensitive data with non-reversible tokens that can’t be mathematically decoded. The urgency comes from quantum computing advances. NIST finalized post-quantum encryption standards in August 2024, including ML-KEM (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber) and ML-DSA (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium). Attackers already practice “harvest now, decrypt later”—collecting encrypted data today for quantum decryption within five to ten years. Organizations must begin quantum-safe transitions now.

11. Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) — 12.51% CAGR — $17.68B → $28.36B

The largest single category adds $10.68 billion in new spending as ransomware attacks surge. U.S. ransomware attacks increased 149% year-over-year—from 152 incidents in early 2024 to 378 in the same period of 2025, according to Cyble analysis. Next-generation EPP platforms use behavioral analytics and signatureless detection to stop ransomware before encryption begins, catching what traditional antivirus misses.

12. Secure Web Gateway (SWG) — 11.63% CAGR — $4.44B → $6.74B

Malicious sites appear and disappear in hours. Cloud-delivered SWGs update threat intelligence in real-time, protecting remote and hybrid workforces wherever they connect. Integration with ZTNA creates comprehensive security that follows users across devices and locations without relying on network perimeters that no longer exist.

13. Web Application Firewalls (WAF) — 10.92% CAGR — $2.48B → $3.74B

Organizations expose hundreds of APIs and microservices—each a potential attack vector. Traditional network firewalls can’t inspect application-layer attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or API abuse. Modern WAFs use machine learning to differentiate legitimate user behavior from attack traffic without blocking customers. Getting that balance right is harder than it sounds.

14. Encryption — 10.64% CAGR — $1.35B → $1.98B

NIST’s standardization of quantum-resistant algorithms signals the urgency that organizations can no longer ignore. With quantum computing advances accelerating, encrypted data collected today faces decryption within a decade. Enterprises must transition to post-quantum cryptography now because full integration across complex environments takes years. This isn’t theoretical risk anymore.

15. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) — 10.30% CAGR — $7.60B → $11.15B

AI transforms SIEM from reactive log collection to proactive threat hunting. The latest platforms embed unsupervised machine learning to detect zero-day attacks and automatically enrich alerts with context. Organizations using AI-powered automation save $1.9 million per breach and cut incident lifecycles by 80 days—turning security operations into a competitive advantage rather than a cost center.

Why this matters

Cloud complexity has proven exponential. With 79% of organizations using multiple cloud providers and managing hundreds of accounts, manual security processes break under the load. The 29.36% CAGR for CSPM isn’t market optimism. It’s organizational survival.

Shadow AI joins shadow IT as a core threatscape element. Shadow AI breaches cost $4.63 million—$670,000 more than standard incidents, according to IBM data. But AI also powers the best defenses, with automated security tools reducing breach lifecycles by 80 days. The same technology that creates vulnerabilities offers the most effective countermeasures.

Compliance costs keep accelerating. Between GDPR, CCPA, and emerging global regulations, manual compliance processes create escalating liability. Automated platforms turn regulatory requirements into competitive advantages by reducing fine exposure and accelerating data subject request responses.

Bottom Line

The organizations winning this transformation aren’t those with the largest security budgets. They’re the ones investing in the right categories at the right time. These fifteen segments define what modern security architecture looks like and capture nearly half of all new security spending through 2029.

Gartner’s 4Q25 data delivers a clear message. Security spending is shifting to automation-driven, zero-trust, cloud-native architectures. Organizations still relying on legacy approaches aren’t just falling behind. They’re accepting risks the market has already priced as unacceptable.

Source: Gartner Forecast: Information Security, Worldwide, 2023-2029, 4Q25 Update (Document G00843183, published December 18, 2025), showing overall market growth from $213.5B (2025) to $311.9B (2029) at 10.03% CAGR in constant currency.

 

 

Aug 25

Top Ten Insights from Forrester’s 2024 Cybersecurity Budget Benchmarks

Top Ten Insights from Forrester's 2024 Cybersecurity Budget Benchmarks

CISOs are being asked to do a lot more with less as their businesses are going all-in on new digital businesses that demand identity-based security while keeping budgets tight for securing infrastructure against attacks.

Cybersecurity budgets are, on average, just 5.7% of IT annual spending. That’s tight for many security teams. CISOs are rising to the challenge, however, and delivering revenue gains by protecting new digital businesses while keeping infrastructure safe. Achieving that is a quick way for CISOs to advance their careers.

Cybersecurity needs funding to match its business growth potential

The good news is that more CEOs and boards see cybersecurity as a business enabler. The challenge for CISOs, however, is that cybersecurity still gets funded purely for its defensive value – not its upside potential to drive growth.

Many security teams struggle to make ends meet in their budgets while still staying responsive to internal teams’ needs. Forrester’s 2024 Cybersecurity Benchmarks Global Report shows just how tight budgets can get for a CISO and their team. Project-related work and incident management are a constant balancing act for security teams, and keeping them both in check is key to staying under budget.

Top Ten Insights

Cybersecurity budgets are on the low side compared to the growing complexity of threats and risks organizations face.

That’s forcing CISOs to be selective about what they spend on and how they allocate limited resources. Add to that the average spend of $1,070 per enterprise user and $157,000 per cybersecurity employee, and cybersecurity teams have little, if any, room for inefficiencies.

The following are the top ten insights from Forrester’s latest cybersecurity benchmark report:

  • CISOs need to move out of the IT organization and report to their CEOs and board of directors to have a chance at a more realistic budget. Forrester finds that cybersecurity budgets increase when CISOs report directly to the CEO or board of directors. CISOs who can articulate the business value of cybersecurity, demonstrating how it can drive revenue and support strategic goals, are more likely to secure the necessary funding. This shift also reflects a growing recognition of cybersecurity’s strategic importance beyond mere IT operations.
  • Software will dominate cybersecurity budgets in 2024. The report reveals that 35.9% of cybersecurity budgets globally are allocated to software. This trend is particularly pronounced in large enterprises with up to 74,999 employees, where 39.4% of the budget is dedicated to software. Smaller organizations, conversely, spend a higher percentage on outsourcing services due to limited in-house capabilities, which underscores the scalability challenges smaller firms face in maintaining robust cybersecurity defenses.
Top Ten Insights from Forrester's 2024 Cybersecurity Budget Benchmarks

Source: Forrester 2024 Cybersecurity Benchmarks Global Report

  • Cybersecurity spending per user keeps climbing, reaching $1,070. This is another budget constraint CISOs have to factor into their total operations plans for a given year. Forrester notes that “the cybersecurity spend per enterprise user ranges from an average of $947 at extra-large organizations (75,000 or more users) to $1,210 at small organizations (fewer than 10,000 users).
  • Personnel costs consume 28% of the typical security budget. The report highlights that organizations are spending an average of $157,593 per cybersecurity employee. Full-time employees make up 73.5% of security teams, with the global average cost per contracted full-time equivalent (FTE) reaching $194,613. This significant expenditure on personnel underscores the critical role of skilled professionals in maintaining effective cybersecurity defenses.
Top Ten Insights from Forrester's 2024 Cybersecurity Budget Benchmarks
Source:  Forrester 2024 Cybersecurity Benchmarks Global Report
  • System Defense is the leading functional spend category in 2024. Forrester finds that 29% of functional spending is in System Defense alone. The funding levels approved for this category reflect the critical need to protect endpoints and mobile devices against increasingly sophisticated attacks. With adversaries innovating faster than enterprises can keep up, System Defense is a must-have to protect new digital businesses and infrastructure. The following graphic shows cybersecurity spending by functional domain.
Top Ten Insights from Forrester's 2024 Cybersecurity Budget Benchmarks
Source:  Forrester 2024 Cybersecurity Benchmarks Global Report
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM) takes up 21% of functional spending in the typical budget. Identity-driven attacks take many forms, from mass phishing to whale phishing, where senior executives of a company are targeted with tailored campaigns IAM also enhances operational efficiency and fraud reduction, making it a strategic investment for many organizations. Its broad applicability across both internal and customer-facing applications drives its substantial share of the cybersecurity budget.
  • Security analytics and incident handling reach 13% and 14%, respectively. Forrester notes that each of these separate services accounts for a relatively low percentage of the overall cybersecurity budget. Still, most organizations combine spending on these two categories into “detection and response.” Both areas combined equal 26% of the overall security budget, on average.
  • Getting compliance and governance right is a growing concern for many CISOs who are willing to spend their budget to stay in good standing with the SEC. The Security and Exchange Commission’s Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure adopted on July 26, 2023. The rules adopted by the SEC define a standardized process for cybersecurity disclosures for public companies. These rules require companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents on Form 8-K or Form 6-K within four business days of determining the incident’s materiality. Additionally, companies must include cybersecurity risk management, strategy, and governance information in their annual reports (Forms 10-K and 20-F). The rules also mandate the use of Inline XBRL for tagging these disclosures.
  • Incident handling is on average, 13.5% of a global cybersecurity budget. This category is the most unpredictable, as it deals with responding to intrusions and breaches that cannot be forecasted. Spending on incident handling varies by company size, with small organizations (fewer than 10,000 employees) aligning with the global average of 13.5%. Larger organizations tend to allocate slightly less, likely due to more extensive preventative measures and diversified cybersecurity resources.
  • Privacy is core to customer trust today and gets funded, even in tough budgeting cycles. The two departments that use privacy-related solutions the most frequently are legal and marketing, which dedicate on average 12% of a cybersecurity budget to them. Forrester notes that this 12% figure is not the total privacy spend of an organization. Rather, the report says, “Data privacy spans multiple areas of the organization, including marketing and legal. Its share of the security budget doesn’t represent the total spending on privacy-related initiatives across the entire technology estate.

Balancing the scales of cybersecurity budgeting

The bottom line is that cybersecurity is a business decision and needs to be funded with that mindset. Organizations need to see the CISO role as a more board-level one so they can share their technology expertise in helping to manage risk.

It’s time for cybersecurity to be funded as a growth engine, not just one used for deterrence alone.

CISOs can balance the scales by looking for an opportunity to elevate their role to a CEO direct report and, ideally, be on the board to help guide their companies through an increasingly complex threat landscape.

Jul 7

GenAI and IoT security are core to Forrester's top 10 emerging technologies in 2024
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GenAI and IoT security are core to Forrester’s top 10 emerging technologies in 2024

Predicting that generative AI (genAI) for visual content, genAI for language, TuringBots, and IoT security will be the four technologies that deliver the most immediate ROI in two years, Forrester’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2024 reflects the urgency more businesses have for making AI pay while securing their most at-risk endpoints.

Rounding out Forrester’s ten emerging technologies are AI agents, autonomous mobility, edge intelligence, quantum security, extended reality (XR), and Zero Trust Edge (ZTE).

Forrester’s stack ranking of technologies by ROI potential

Advising clients to include ten emerging technologies on their radar and roadmap, Forrester has segmented them into short-term, medium-, and long-term groups based on their potential to deliver ROI. Three of the ten emerging technologies are cybersecurity related.

Technologies predicted to deliver the most significant ROI over the next two years

GenAI for visual content and language. Given how quickly genAI’s adoption is accelerating across enterprises via a myriad of cloud-based apps and tools, especially in marketing, digital design, and communications, it’s clear why Forrester predicted that genAI for visual content, genAI for language have the potential to deliver ROI in two years. Forrester notes that “genAI for language is already delivering value in customer support and content creation but continues to advance at a blinding pace. It is accelerating many other technologies as it goes.”

TuringBots are predicted to accelerate app development. The report states that these AI-powered software robots “help developers build applications that deliver more than just code generation” thanks to advancements in genAI for language. TuringBots are defined as “AI-powered software that augments application development teams’ automation and semiautonomous capabilities to plan, analyze, design, code, test, deliver, and deploy while providing assistive intelligence on code, development processes, and applications.”

IoT Security to secure the proliferating number and variety of endpoint devices. Forrester defines IoT security technology as including components that are “familiar to endpoint management and security: asset management, identity and access management (IAM), data security management, Zero Trust networking, and attack surface risk management.” Forrester predicts that deploying IoT security solutions will deliver expected business value within a year as vendors increasingly offer capabilities as part of other cybersecurity platforms.

GenAI and IoT security are core to Forrester's top 10 emerging technologies in 2024

Source: Forrester’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2024

Emerging technologies predicted to deliver ROI in two to five years

AI agents. Forrester is seeing AI agent technology stacks include advanced deep learning techniques, including generative, predictive, and reinforcement learning, that enable greater context, analysis, strategy, and planning. Forrester believes their full realization is two to five years away, predicting that “organizations with large amounts of information and sizable human workforces will likely see the biggest and most immediate benefits.”

Autonomous mobility. Manufacturing and logistics are two industries shifting workloads from initial pilots into production, according to Forrester. Both industries are facing continued labor shortages, regulatory pressures, and rising costs and see the potential to improve traffic and supply chain management results. Key benefits include greater operational efficiencies across shop floors, improved regulatory compliance, enhanced worker productivity and safety, and more accurate data to track environmental sustainability efforts.

Edge intelligence. Edge intelligence, according to Forrester, is “the ability to collect data, make assumptions based on that data, and link that data to relevant, distributed, orchestrated, and contextually driven responses in a network of application, device, and communication ecosystems.” The report further defines the tech stack for edge intelligence as including streaming analytics, edge ML, federated ML, and real-time data management on intelligent devices and edge servers.

Quantum security. Reducing the risk of “harvest now, decrypt later” quantum attacks, providing increased cryptographic agility for the future, and improving digital signatures are a few of the many benefits quantum security delivers. Asymmetric and symmetric key generation, symmetric key distribution via QKD, digital signatures and certificate management, and keeping an accurate list of cryptographic algorithms are some of the most common uses. These benefits and use cases form the basis of Forrestter’s assigning quantum security into the mid-segment of their stack ranking.

GenAI and IoT security are core to Forrester's top 10 emerging technologies in 2024

Source: Forrester’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2024

Emerging technologies predicted to deliver ROI in over five years

Extended reality (XR). Forrester defines XR as “a technology that overlays computer imagery on a user’s field of vision, with augmented reality (AR), mixed reality, and virtual reality (VR) technologies that are supported by the same developer tools, sensors, cameras, and simulation engines.” Their report notes that only 8% of US online adults own a virtual-reality headset, and just 16% have used an augmented-reality device or app. While XR is advancing in training and onboarding, companies are resisting investing in tools like these until they see broad adoption.

Zero Trust Edge (ZTE). ZTE technology has the potential to protect remote workers, retail outlets, and branch offices with embedded local security. Highly distributed enterprises with little variation between sites are predicted to see the greatest benefit first.

Conclusion

Forrester sees security as core to any organization seeking to maximize the value and ROI of emerging technologies.

Three cybersecurity technologies, IoT security, quantum security, and zero trust edge (ZTE)—form the foundation of the ten emerging technologies. “The inclusion of these security technologies underscores a crucial point: the future belongs to those with the foresight and will to invest in security now. As AI capabilities expand, so do the potential vulnerabilities that malicious actors can exploit,” writes Brian Hopkins, vice president, emerging tech portfolio at Forrester.

Defending endpoints need to start with a zero-trust framework that enforces least privileged access and monitors everything happening on the network while also enabling microsegmentation to reduce the blast radius of a potential cyberattack. Relying on legacy account and identity and access management (IAM) systems that assume trust across systems and within identity management data structures is a breach waiting to happen.

Forrester’s top ten emerging technologies show a progression from already having significant use cases and adoption to newer technologies that are nascent in the market. All share a common characteristic with security, however. As technologies get more complex and remain unproven, security technologies need to step up the use of new technologies to counter threats. Quantum security and zero trust edge correspond with the direction of the ten emerging technologies. They reflect the need to keep improving security to protect the best ROI possible with new technologies on the horizon.

Jul 7

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

Over the past year, 66% of organizations experienced at least one ransomware attack, with many suffering repeated breaches. According to Deloitte’s Annual Cyber Threat Trends report, ransomware, identity-based attacks, and sophisticated attack methods like zero-day exploits and AI-driven cyber espionage dominate a rapidly changing threat landscape.

Ransomware attackers specialize in making chaos pay

Attackers are using ransomware as a smash-and-grab strategy, often to finance other illegal operations. Cybercrime gangs, including those that are state-funded, rely on ransomware as a primary source of revenue as well.

Ransomware attackers aim to create widespread chaos across supply chains, amplifying the impact of their attacks. For example, United Healthcare paid a $22 million ransom in Bitcoin, demonstrating how greater disruption often leads to higher payouts.

“Sophisticated ransomware operators are increasingly using zero-day exploits as their initial access vector, with 36 percent of victims ransomed in this way. Valid credential compromise was the second most common entry point for ransomware attacks,” says Deloitte in the report.

“Phishing, remote attacks on public-facing infrastructure, and unauthorized remote desktop connections continue to be the primary sources of infiltration for ransomware,” writes Paul Furtado, Gartner vice president analyst, in a recent research report, How to Prepare for Ransomware Attacks.

Furtado notes that “bad actors are mining exfiltrated data to identify other potential sources of revenue,” further increasing the urgency to harden cyberdefenses against ransomware attacks. The following is a typical ransomware attack pattern as defined in the Gartner report.

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

Source: Gartner, How to Prepare for Ransomware Attacks, 16 April 2024

CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence teams regularly monitor every known ransomware variant. “RaaS kits are easy to find on the dark web, where they are advertised in the same way that goods are advertised on the legitimate web,” writes Kurt Baker in a blog post explaining RaaS. The post continues, “a RaaS kit may include 24/7 support, bundled offers, user reviews, forums, and other features identical to those offered by legitimate SaaS providers.”

The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community found that “transnational organized criminals involved in ransomware operations are improving their attacks, extorting funds, disrupting critical services, and exposing sensitive data. Important U.S. services and critical infrastructure such as health care, schools, and manufacturing continue to experience ransomware attacks.”

Adversarial AI’s growing tradecraft

Deloitte’s research uncovered the growing use of adversarial AI for cyber espionage, finding it’s driving new forms of tradecraft in influence operations, social engineering, underground services, and collaboration.

Adversarial AI’s goal is to deliberately mislead AI and machine learning (ML) systems so they are ineffective for the use cases they’re being designed for. Adversarial AI refers to “the use of artificial intelligence techniques to manipulate or deceive AI systems. It’s like a cunning chess player who exploits the vulnerabilities of their opponent. These intelligent adversaries can bypass traditional cyber defense systems, using sophisticated algorithms and techniques to evade detection and launch targeted attacks.”

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

source: Deloitte Annual Cyber Threat Trends report

Influence operations are the most active threat vector of the three Deloitte is tracking. AI image deception and deepfake accuracy are accelerating faster than many existing detection technologies can keep up with.

Telesign’s 2024 Trust Index found just how wide the trust gap is becoming due to deep fakes and broader influence operations. 87% of Americans hold businesses accountable for digital privacy, yet only 34% trust them to use AI effectively to protect against fraud. Deepfakes and misinformation are driving a wedge of distrust between companies, the customers they serve, and citizens participating in elections this year.

Deloitte found that social engineering-based attacks are becoming more challenging to identify and stop. Nation-states are weaponizing LLMs and using genAI to improve their ability to launch large-scale social engineering attacks aimed at harvesting privileged access credentials and gaining control of thousands of identities in an enterprise at once.

The rapid growth of Voice Cloning-as-a-Service (VCaaS) tools powered by AI, which is used for vishing attacks to clone voices for financial fraud and unauthorized access, continues to defy easy detection. Cybercriminals and nation-state adversaries are quick to invest in new technologies that yield tradecraft that existing cybersecurity systems can’t decipher, and deepfakes are among the most undetectable today.

Preventing a ransomware attack

Start with a zero-trust mindset. Any trust-based connections in a network are a liability—a ransomware attack waiting to happen. Furtado advises, “Build and execute on a zero-trust strategy that reduces the risk of attackers abusing implicit trust in environments to achieve lateral movement, employ available exploits, and gain privilege escalation to deploy ransomware.”

Furtado’s recommendations reflect a strong zero-trust mindset that seeks to eliminate lateral movement, enforce least privilege access, and monitor all network activity while hardening identity and access management (IAM) security. In short, he’s advising having as strong of a zero-trust framework as possible in place to withstand a ransomware attack.

One of the core concepts of zero trust is to assume an attack has already penetrated the network. Furtado’s key takeaways from his recent report on ransomware include the following:

  • Have a complete preincident prevention strategy that includes workspace and endpoint protection, data protection, immutable backup, asset management, end-user awareness training, and strong identity and access management.

  • Implement a reliable asset management process to identify what needs to be protected and who is responsible, paying particular attention to legacy systems.

  • Establish a risk-based vulnerability management process that includes threat intelligence (TI) to address unpatched systems.

  • Implement both macro and micro network segmentation to minimize the blast radius of ransomware attacks.

  • Build and execute a zero-trust strategy to reduce the risk of attackers abusing implicit trust in environments.

  • Implement compliance scanning, penetration testing, and breach attack simulation (BAS) tools.

  • Remove local administrative privileges on endpoints and limit access to sensitive applications, including email, to prevent account compromise.

  • Prevent access to the command prompt and block the execution of PowerShell scripts on all user endpoints.

  • Implement strong authentication for privileged users, such as database and infrastructure administrators and service accounts, and log and monitor their activity.

May 19

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Gartner’s 2024 CEO Survey Reveals AI as Top Strategic Priority

Gartner's 2024 CEO Survey Reveals AI as Top Strategic Priority

75% of CEOs used ChatGPT in the first half of 2023, with 44% incorporating it into their jobs.

Gartner’s 2024 CEO survey finds that CEOs are on board with AI to a much greater extent than previously believed. 87% of CEOs agree that AI’s benefits to their business outweigh its risks. “Digitalization, in general, and AI, in particular, will be core innovative elements in revised business strategies, as will environmental-sustainability-based growth ideas,” writes Gartner in the report.

CEOs experimenting with synthetic video

Almost a third of CEOs have considered making and using a synthetic video of themselves. Gartner notes that Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO of the European utility services company Veolia, has posted an AI-augmented video of herself on LinkedIn and X appearing to speak in multiple languages.

Driving AI adoption

CEOs who adopt new technologies immediately drive their adoption enterprise-wide because everyone immediately sees those technologies as critical to their jobs. Seasoned CEOs know the quickest way to get a new enterprise app’s adoption rate to go up is to use it themselves and demonstrate their mastery quickly. What’s happening with AI’s adoption is faster than many CEOs expected.

Key takeaways from Gartner’s 2024 CEO survey include the following:

  • Growth dominates CEO agendas, reaching a new record in Gartner’s annual survey. “CEOs’ top business priority of growth is up 25% and is at the highest level since 2014,’ writes Financial considerations increased by 25%, cost management by 11%, and customer priorities grew by 22%. The survey points towards CEOs being more focused on profitability and margins, two signs of internal process gains to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency. The survey results point to more CEOs looking at how to get greater returns from the most expensive assets their businesses operate.
75% of CEOs used ChatGPT in the first half of 2023, with 44% incorporating it into their jobs.Gartner's 2024 CEO survey finds that CEOs are on board with AI to a much greater extent than previously believed. 87% of CEOs agree that the benefits of AI to their business outweigh its risks. "Digitalization, in general, and AI, in particular, will be core innovative elements in revised business strategies, as will environmental-sustainability-based growth ideas," writes Gartner in the report. CEOs experimenting with synthetic video Almost a third of CEOs have considered making and using a synthetic video of themselves. Gartner notes that Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO of the European utility services company Veolia, has posted an AI-augmented video of herself on LinkedIn and X appearing to speak in multiple languages. Driving AI adoption CEOs who adopt new technologies immediately drive their adoption enterprise-wide because everyone immediately sees those technologies as critical to their jobs. Seasoned CEOs know the quickest way to get a new enterprise app's adoption rate to go up is to use it themselves and demonstrate their mastery quickly. What's happening with AI's adoption is faster than many CEOs expected. Key takeaways from Gartner's 2024 CEO survey include the following: • Growth dominates CEO agendas, reaching a new record in Gartner's annual survey. "CEOs' top business priority of growth is up 25% and is at the highest level since 2014,' writes Gartner. Financial considerations increased by 25%, cost management by 11%, and customer priorities grew by 22%. The survey points towards CEOs being more focused on profitability and margins, two signs of internal process gains to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency. The survey results point to more CEOs looking at how to get greater returns from the most expensive assets their businesses operate. Ceo growth 1 • CEOs mentioning AI as one of their top two technology priorities jumped from 4% in 2023 to 24% in 2024. Technology innovation also increased from 7% to 11%, and the use of digital transformation for growth increased from 9% to 11%. It's interesting to see how CEOs are focusing on how to improve, integrate, and modernize their strategic use of technology. That category jumps from 1% in 2023 to 5% in 2024. "AI is explicitly mentioned a lot more in 2024 than it was in the 2023 survey. At the same time, mentions of "digitalization" have declined significantly, and so have mentions of e-commerce and omnichannel," writes Gartner. CEO two top strategic business priorities 2 • 34% of CEOs say that the next business transformation their enterprises will pursue after digital is AI. CEO's intentions to pursue AI as their next business transformation are nearly four times greater than their interest in operations efficiency and agility. Sustainability and ESG are a distant third priority. Just 5% of CEOs say customer experience/centricity will be a priority. the theme of the next transformation after digital • 59% say AI is the technology that will most impact their industry. AI has a four-year track record of being the top category, starting in 2020, with the percentage of CEOs mentioning it ranging between 18% to 29%. Gartner mentions in the survey results that in 15 years of asking this question and comparable ones to it, there's never been a category that emerges as dominant as AI has. In the past, CEOs believed cloud and big data technologies would be the most impactful. Previous technologies have had nowhere near the extent of impact that AI does today. "Eighty-six percent of CEOs expect AI will help maintain or grow their revenue in 2024-2025, and when asked exactly how that would happen, the top answer category was an improvement to customer experience and relationships," writes Gartner. Use AI to Help Maintain or Grow Company Revenue

Source: Gartner 2024 CEO Survey — The Year of Strategy Relaunches

  • CEOs mentioning AI as one of their top two technology priorities jumped from 4% in 2023 to 24% in 2024. Technology innovation also increased from 7% to 11%, and the use of digital transformation for growth increased from 9% to 11%. It’s interesting to see how CEOs are focusing on how to improve, integrate, and modernize their strategic use of technology. That category jumps from 1% in 2023 to 5% in 2024. “AI is explicitly mentioned a lot more in 2024 than it was in the 2023 survey. At the same time, mentions of “digitalization” have declined significantly, as have mentions of e-commerce and omnichannel,” writes Gartner.
Gartner's 2024 CEO Survey Reveals AI as Top Strategic Priority

Source: Gartner 2024 CEO Survey — The Year of Strategy Relaunches

  • 34% of CEOs say that the next business transformation their enterprises will pursue after digital is AI. CEO’s intentions to pursue AI as their next business transformation are nearly four times greater than their interest in operations efficiency and agility. Sustainability and ESG are a distant third priority. Just 5% of CEOs say customer experience/centricity will be a priority.
Gartner's 2024 CEO Survey Reveals AI as Top Strategic Priority

Source: Gartner 2024 CEO Survey — The Year of Strategy Relaunches

  • 59% say AI is the technology that will most impact their industry. AI has a four-year track record of being the top category, starting in 2020, with the percentage of CEOs mentioning it ranging between 18% to 29%. Gartner mentions in the survey results that in 15 years of asking this question and comparable ones to it, there’s never been a category that emerges as dominant as AI has. In the past, CEOs believed cloud and big data technologies would be the most impactful. Previous technologies have had nowhere near the extent of impact that AI does today. “Eighty-six percent of CEOs expect AI will help maintain or grow their revenue in 2024-2025, and when asked exactly how that would happen, the top answer category was an improvement to customer experience and relationships,” writes Gartner.
Gartner's 2024 CEO Survey Reveals AI as Top Strategic Priority

Source: Gartner 2024 CEO Survey — The Year of Strategy Relaunches

May 3

FinancialForce’s Spring 2022 Release Defines the Future of FP&A In Services

Economic uncertainty sends shock waves throughout businesses, with service organizations seeing its brunt. The recent drastic drop-off in Netflix subscribers is a case in point. Services CFOs say there is an urgent need to track how well their overarching planning strategies linking finance and operations perform. However, getting the data to analyze has been challenging for even the largest services businesses.

As a result, CFOs need Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) integrated with operational planning applications to make it easier to track plan performance across all P&Ls and financials. FinancialForce’s decision to launch a fully-featured FP&A on their ERP Cloud platform shows they read the services market clearly and listen to their customers’ CFOs on what matters most.

CFOs Want To Know The Financial Impact Of Every Planning Decision

Even during economic stability, finance teams struggle to get operations planning teams the data they need to predict the financial outcomes of decisions. Line-of-business leaders look to finance to provide accurate, detailed information on the financial implications of every planning decision. By having FP&A use the same data accounting, reporting and planning have, CFOs, COOs, and their teams get greater visibility and control over every aspect of budgeting and forecasting.

One of FP&A’s greatest shortcomings in the past was relying only on siloed financial data alone with little visibility into operational planning. Financial teams need access to all available data across finance and operations to do their jobs well and create accurate forecasts. Getting FP&A right with any ERP platform needs to start with the goal of delivering integrated business planning. Sales management and their teams also need visibility into FP&A reporting and analysis to manage revenue. FinancialForce’s decades of experience on the Salesforce platform combined with the integration expertise Salesforces’ MuleSoft acquisition brought to the company four years ago will increase the probability of their FP&A solution gaining adoption.

Services companies’ CFOs are grappling with new economic uncertainties every week. As a result, they’re most interested in getting greater visibility and control over the planning process, including version control, more automated multi-planning options, and more real-time enterprise-wide collaboration, all on a single platform. FinancialForce’s DevOps and product management teams deserve credit for identifying these challenges and including them in their FP&A application delivered in the Spring 2022 release.

FinancialForce

FinancialForce’s long-awaited FP&A solution enables analysts to create multiple what-if scenarios using calculation rules and mass functions, create dynamic plans and stress-test assumptions, and better anticipate their return by area and investment.

The future of FP&A Is An Integrated Cloud

Service organizations are quicker to migrate to the cloud versus their product-based counterparts. That’s because procurement, order-to-cash, and supply chain management workflows tend to be less complex than product-based businesses. Services organizations also need financial management, procure-to-pay, and Professional Services Automation (PSA), all on the same platform to support operational planning with FP&A.

FinancialForce’s Multi-X functionality is expanded in the Spring 2022 release to simplify the consolidation of financial statements and meet the needs of multi-entity organizations. In the latest release, it’s possible to record taxes due from intercompany tax transactions, accelerating the intercompany process for taxation and reporting. The Spring 2022 release also streamlines the creation of multi-company sales invoices and simplifies consolidated financial statement preparation with consolidation group structure capabilities.

FinancialForce

Multi-X enables the recording and sharing across a multi-tier or multi-entity business.

New localization features that are essential to running a global business were added, including support for Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, and Austria, as well as enhanced business operations in Germany and Australia. In addition, multi-X supports multi-company invoicing support and advanced invoice consolidations for multi-revenue billing. Calculating and recording tax on intercompany transactions and enabling cash matching process across companies are also supported.

FP&A’s future is an integrated cloud, further validated by FinancialForce’s’ launch of ERP Cloud, Professional Services Cloud, and enhancements to its Customer Success solutions. “In today’s business environment, organizations must be able to respond to disruptions quickly while continuing to innovate and deliver tangible outcomes to their customers,” said Dan Brown, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at FinancialForce. “Our Spring 2022 release gives our customers a richer toolset to help pursue their primary goal, delivering exceptional customer outcomes while improving the customer experience across the opportunity-to-renewal journey.”

New Professional Services (PS) Cloud additions in the Spring 2022 release include customer-requested improvements to skills and resource management, services estimating, and project management capabilities. FinancialForce’s customers have also requested improved resource management to scale their efforts to train and retain their workforce. As a result, the Spring 2022 Release adds intelligent automation to the staffing process by enabling auto-assignment of resource requests that meet specific criteria and an expanded capability to model ideal staffing scenarios across a project, opportunity, or region. These enhancements improve PS Cloud’s resource optimization capabilities and enable resource managers to deploy ever larger and more complex teams efficiently and cost-effectively.

Conclusion

Services organizations are looking for cloud-based professional services ERP systems that deliver greater forecast accuracy, faster forecasting and budgeting, and improved accountability, visibility, and control. Integrated clouds are the future of FP&A for all these factors and the need all services organizations have to improve revenue and operations performance. In addition, given the growing economic uncertainty today, CFOs also want to increase better predictability and better risk management strategies while also supporting more collaboration. All these factors combined are defining the future of FP&A in an integrated cloud, which is what FinancialForce has been doing for decades on the Salesforce platform.

Apr 8

Five Ways AI Can Help Create New Smart Manufacturing Startups

smart manufacturing, AI, machine learning

AI and machine learning’s potential to drive greater visibility, control, and insight across shop floors while monitoring machines and processes in real-time continue to attract venture capital. $62 billion is now invested in 5,396 startups concentrating on the intersection of AI, machine learning, manufacturing, and Industry 4.0, according to Crunchbase.

PwC’s broader tech sector analysis shows a 30% year-over-year growth in funding rounds that reached $293.2 billion in 2021. Smart manufacturing startups are financed by seed rounds at 52%, followed by early-stage venture funding at 33%. The median last funding amount was $1.6 million, with the average being $9.93 million.

 Abundant AI startup opportunities in smart manufacturing and industry 4.0 

According to Gartner, “The underlying concept of Industry 4.0 is to connect embedded systems and smart production facilities to generate a digital convergence between industry, business, and internal functions and processes.” As a result, Industry 4.0 is predicted to grow from $84.59 billion in 2020 to $334.18 billion by 2028. AI and machine learning adoption in manufacturing are growing in five core fields: smart production, products and services improvements, business operations and management, supply chain, and business model decision-making. Deloitte’s survey on AI adoption in manufacturing found that 93% of companies believe AI will be a key technology to drive growth and innovation.

Machine intelligence (MI) is one of the primary catalysts driving increased venture capital investment in smart manufacturing. Startup CEOs and their customers want AI and machine learning models based on actual data, and machine intelligence is helping to make that happen. An article by McKinsey & Company provides valuable insights into market gaps for new ventures. McKinsey’s compelling data point is that those leading companies using MI achieve 3X to 4X the impact of their peers. However, 92% of leaders also have a process to track incomplete or inaccurate data – which is another market gap startups need to fill.

AI, Industry 4, smart manufacturing

McKinsey and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) collaborated on a survey to identify machine intelligence leaders’ KPI gains relative to their peers. They found that leaders achieve efficiency, cost, revenue, service, and time-to-market advantages. Source: Toward smart production: Machine intelligence in business operations, McKinsey & Company. February 1, 2022.

Based on the uplift MI creates for new smart manufacturing startup funding and the pervasive need manufacturers have to improve visibility & control across shop floors, startups have many potential opportunities. The following are five that AI and machine learning is helping to create:

  1. AI-enabled Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) systems that can factor in supply chain volatility on product costs are needed. Several startups are already using AI and machine learning in CPQ workflows, and they compete with the largest enterprise software providers in the industry, including Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, and others. However, no one has taken on the challenge of using AI to factor in how supply chain volatility changes standard and actual costs in real-time. For example, knowing the impact of pricing changes based on an allocation, how does that impact standard costs per unit on each order? Right now, an analyst needs to spend time doing that. AI and machine learning could take on that task so analysts could get to the larger, more complex, and costly supply chain problems impacting CPQ close rates and revenue.
  2. Using AI-enabled real-time data capture techniques to identify anomalies in throughput as an indicator of machine health. The aggregated data manufacturing operations produced every day holds clues regarding each machine’s health on the shop floor. Automated data capture can identify scrap rates, yield rates and track actual costs. However, none of them can analyze the slight variations in process flow product outputs to warn of possible machine or supply chain issues. Each process manufacturing machine runs at its cadence or speed, and having an AI-based sensor system track and analyze why speeds are off could save thousands of dollars in maintenance costs and keep the line running. In addition, adding insight and intelligence to the machine’s real-time data feeds frees quality engineers to concentrate on more complex problems.
  3. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and edge computing data can be used for fine-tuning finite scheduling in real-time. Finite scheduling is part of the broader manufacturing systems organizations rely on to optimize shop floor schedules, machinery, and staff scheduling. It can be either manually intensive or automated to provide operators with valuable insights. A potential smart manufacturing opportunity is a finite scheduler that relies on AI and machine learning to keep schedules on track and make trade-offs to ensure resources are used efficiently. Finite schedulers also need greater accuracy in factoring in frequent changes to delivery dates. AI and machine learning could drive greater on-time delivery performance when integrated across all the shop floors a manufacturer relies on.
  4. Automated visual inspections and quality analysis to improve yield rates and reduce scrap. Using visual sensors to capture data in real-time and then analyze them for anomalies is in its nascent stages of deployment and growth. However, this is an area where captured data sets can provide machine learning algorithms with enough accuracy to identify potential quality problems on products before they leave the factory. Convolutional neural networks are an effective machine learning technique for identifying patterns and anomalies in images. They’re perfect for the use case of streamlining visual inspection and in-line quality checks in discrete, batch, and process manufacturing.
  5. Coordinated robotics (Cobots) to handle assemble-to-order product assembly. The latest cobots can be programmed to stay in sync with each other and perform pick, pack, ship, and place materials in warehouses. What’s needed are advanced cobots that can handle simple product assembly at a more competitive cost as manufacturers continue to face chronic labor shortages and often run a shift with less than half the teams they need.

Talent remains an area of need 

Manufacturers’ CEOs and COOs say that recruiting and retaining enough talent to run all the production shifts they need is the most persistent issue. In addition, those manufacturers located in remote regions of the world are turning to robotics to fulfill orders, which opens up opportunities for integrating AI and machine learning to enable cobots to complete assemble-to-order tasks. The unknown impact of how fast supply chain conditions change needs work from startups, too, especially in tracking actual cost performance. These are just a few opportunities for startups looking to apply AI and machine learnings‘ innate strengths to solve complex supply chain, manufacturing, quality management, and compliance challenges.

Apr 6

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2022 Dominated Again By Tech

LinkedIn

Amazon’s Sunnyvale, CA Campus (source: Istockphoto)

  • Tech leaders are six of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2022.
  • Amazon is the again highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), AT&T (7th), Apple (9th), and Comcast (10th).
  • 19 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Dell, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce, Cisco, and others.
  • LinkedIn identified four key trends in their analysis, with flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees.

These and many other insights are from LinkedIn Top Companies 2022: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S., published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 530,000 jobs open across the U.S, with over 70,000 being remote positions. The LinkedIn analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 35 global markets, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, India, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.

LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2022 spotlights the organizations investing in employee success and career development. LinkedIn’s methodology and internal analysis ranked companies based on seven pillars that display career progression: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background.

The 19 Best Tech Companies To Grow Your Career In 2022

The following are profiles of the top 19 tech companies hiring in the U.S. today with links to available positions accessible via LinkedIn:

Amazon

Amazon is the parent company of Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Twitch, PillPack, and others.

Global headcount: 1,600,000 (with 1,100,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City | Most notable skills: Warehouse Operations, Data Entry, AWS Lambda | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Fulfillment Associate, Warehouse Associate | Largest job functions: Operations, Engineering, Program and Project Management | What you should know: Even as the country’s second-largest private employer, Amazon continues to compete in recruiting and retaining top talent amid a competitive labor market. The company recently announced that it’s doubling its maximum base salary for corporate and tech workers, and it raised average wages for warehouse workers late last year, increasing pay for more than half a million of its employees. But the e-commerce giant is going beyond compensation, too: investing $1.2 billion over the next three years to expand its education and skills training initiatives. Amazon now pays 100% of college tuition for frontline employees as part of its Career Choice program and covers high school diploma programs, GEDs, and English proficiency certifications.

See jobs at Amazon

Alphabet

Alphabet is the parent company of Google, YouTube, Fitbit, Waymo, Verily, and others.

Global headcount: 156,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle | Most notable skills: Video Editing and Production, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), C++ | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, Product Manager | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management | What you should know: It’s been a big year for Alphabet: The company onboarded nearly 6,500 employees last quarter and saw significant growth across Google’s Cloud service and YouTube (whose revenues are now growing at a faster rate than Netflix). For those interested in flexibility, the tech giant has a robust offering. In addition to adopting a hybrid work model, the company told LinkedIn that Alphabet offers four ‘work from anywhere’ weeks per year, sabbaticals for long-term employees, and ‘no meeting’ days. But Alphabet has also worked to maintain a collaborative culture and support career growth while working remotely. Employees can take advantage of resource groups like Women@Google and its Googler-to-Googler training, which lets its workers get first-hand knowledge across different fields from other employees.

See jobs at Alphabet

IBM

IBM is the parent company of Red Hat, SoftLayer Technologies, Truven Health Analytics, and others.

Global headcount: 250,000 | Top U.S. locations: New York City; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Francisco Bay Area | Most special skills: Kubernetes, Openshift, Hybrid Cloud | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Project Manager, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: The perennial IT giant has re-upped its benefits offerings amid the Great Reshuffle, IBM told LinkedIn. The new initiatives are increased paid time off, more promotion and pay reviews, backup dependent care, virtual tutoring, and ‘compassionate leave’ for parents who experience stillbirth or miscarriage. In addition, as the company moves forward with a hybrid working model that allows employees to decide how often they want to be onsite, IBM has also transformed its onboarding process with “a focus on empathy and engagement” to help remote new hires feel more connected.

See jobs at IBM

AT&T

AT&T is the parent company of DIRECTV, WarnerMedia, Cricket Wireless, and others.

Global full-time headcount: 202,600 | Top U.S. locations: Atlanta, Dallas, New York City | Most notable skills: Design Thinking, Customer Experience, Futurism | Most common job titles: Retail Sales Consultant, Client Solutions Executive, Customer Service Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering | What you should know: Just three years after the acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T is changing course. The company agreed to a deal last year that will combine WarnerMedia’s assets with Discovery’s to create a new, separate global entertainment giant. Once the spinoff is completed (likely mid-2022), the telecom company will be focused on its core business — expanding access to broadband internet. For its employees, AT&T offers several advancement opportunities. For example, it invests $2 million annually in ‘AT&T University,’ an internal training program to help its workers upskill, and has partnered with groups like Udacity and Coursera to offer advanced online courses.

See jobs at AT&T

Apple

Apple is the parent company of AuthenTec, NeXT Software, Shazam, and others.

Global headcount: 154,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Austin, Texas; New York City | Most notable skills: Apple Software and Hardware, Technical Learning, iOS | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Specialist, Mac Genius | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: Apple is increasing benefits and pay for retail workers to attract and retain employees at its 270 retail stores across the U.S. — including doubling sick days for both full-time and part-time employees and granting more vacation days. Its retail employees are also eligible for paid parental leave and can access discounted emergency childcare. In addition, after being one of the first companies to tell its corporate employees to work remotely in March 2020, Apple is now asking that they return to the office three days a week.

See jobs at Apple

Comcast

Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, Sky, DreamWorks Animation, and others.

Global headcount: 189,000 (with 130,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: Media Production, Cable Modems, Broadcast Television | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Communications Technician, Salesperson | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology | What you should know: Comcast prioritizes career growth and development among its employees through various benefits — including mentorship programs, department rotations and tuition assistance for continuing education and skills development. As a part of its commitment to wellbeing, it also pays for 78% of its employees’ health care costs. Want an in? Comcast says the #1 skill it looks for in new hires is authenticity. We believe that by being yourself, you are empowered to do your best work,” the company told LinkedIn.

See jobs at Comcast

Meta

Meta is the parent company of Onavo, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others.

Global headcount: 71,900 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: PHP, Program Management, Social Media Marketing | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Recruiter, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Human Resources

See jobs at Meta

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies is the parent company of Dell EMC, SecureWorks, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 | Top U.S. locations: Austin, Texas; Boston; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Salesforce | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Inside Sales Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering

See jobs at Dell Technologies

 Accenture

Accenture is the parent company of Karmarama, The Monkeys, Fjord, and others.

Global headcount: 674,000 | Top U.S. locations: Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Management Consulting, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) | Most common job titles: Managing Director, Management Consultant, Business Integration Manager | Largest job functions: Information Technology, Business Development, Engineering

See jobs at Accenture

 Verizon

Verizon is the parent company of GTE Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation, and others.

Global headcount: 119,400 (with 105,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Quotas, Wireless Technologies, Solution Selling | Most common job titles: Solutions Specialist, Customer Service Representative, Business Account Manager | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Verizon

 Intel

Intel is the parent company of Mobileye, Data Center Group, and others.

Global headcount: 121,000 (with 55,700 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: JMP, System on a Chip (SoC), Statistical Process Control (SPC) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Process Engineer, System-on-Chip Design Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Operations, Information Technology

See jobs at Intel

Oracle

Oracle is the parent company of MICROS Systems, NetSuite, Peoplesoft, BEA Systems, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 (46,600 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Denver | Most notable skills: Oracle Cloud, NetSuite, OCI | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Business Development Consultant, Application Sales Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Oracle

 Salesforce

Salesforce is the parent company of Slack, Mulesoft, Buddy Media, Tableau, and others.

Global headcount: 74,300 (41,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: Salesforce.com Administration, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Slack | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Solutions Engineer | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Salesforce

Cisco

Cisco is the parent company of Duo Security and others.

Global headcount: 81,800 (38,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Dallas | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Network Engineering | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Account Manager, Program Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at Cisco

Cognizant

Global headcount: 330,600 (34,680 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Agile & Waterfall Methodologies | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Technical Lead | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management

See jobs at Cognizant | See people you may know at Cognizant

Siemens

Siemens is the parent company of Mendix and others.

Global headcount: 303,000 (with 40,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta | Most notable skills: Building Automation, HVAC Controls, Electrical Troubleshooting | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Senior Sales Executive | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Operations

See jobs at Siemens

Juniper Networks

Global headcount: 10,400 (with 4,400 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Junos, Kubernetes, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, System Engineer, Technical Support Engineer  | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Juniper Networks

Viasat

Viasat is the parent company of RigNet and others.

Global headcount: 5,800 | Top U.S. locations: San Diego, Denver, Atlanta | Most notable skills: RF Test, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Satellite Communications (SATCOM) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, System Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Operations

See jobs at Viasat

MathWorks

Global headcount: 5,000 (with 3,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: MATLAB, Simulink, Deep Learning | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Application Support Engineer, Principal Software Engineer | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at MathWorks

 

LinkedIn’s Key Trends Of 2022

  • Flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees. With job seekers and employees in the driver’s seat and able to ask for the work-life balance they need, flexible work has become required to attract and retain top talent. Most companies on this year’s list offer some form of work-from-anywhere flexibility, with more than 70,000 remote jobs open now across the top 50 companies. Many companies also allow employees to set their schedules and work custom “on” hours through asynchronous work. Some, like Amazon (#1), Raytheon Technologies (#21), and General Motors (#44), are encouraging work-life balance with company-wide days off, while others offer unlimited paid vacation and sabbaticals. In addition, many companies are testing out new flexible offerings – employees at Cisco (#30) have adopted a four-day workweek through the company’s Interim Reduced Workweek program, IBM (#6) has set mandatory “off” hours, Cognizant (#33) offers the option to work a compressed week through its WorkFlex program, Realogy (#40) has a no meetings policy on “Focus Fridays,” Publicis Groupe (#41) allows employees the freedom to work from anywhere they like for up to six weeks per year and PwC (#32) allows employees to step away from work for up to six months while paid through its new Leave of Absence program.
  • Top companies offer stability in an unstable world. While many companies across the U.S. have faced challenges and disruptions over the last year, the Top Companies offer stability and upskilling opportunities that employees can count on – from tuition assistance and PTO for professional development to mentorship programs and job shadowing. Many organizations instituted new programs to retain employees. For example, Deloitte (#11) introduced a new Talent Experience Office focused on employee sentiments and preferences to help inform company choices, EY (#22) offers a Pathway to Purpose virtual program to help employees discover and live their personal purpose and vision, and Kimley-Horn (#31) offers job rotations, so employees learn from different roles and departments. Amazon (#1) is investing $1.2 billion to expand its education and skills training initiatives, Walmart (#5) gives field-based associates access to a no-cost college degree through its Live Better U program, and Verizon (#18) offers an apprenticeship program for those facing employment loss due to automation in technology to prepare them for the jobs of the future. PwC (#32) invested $3 billion in a “New World. New Skills” commitment to equip employees with digital training and awarded a “thank you” bonus of one-week extra pay. Bank of America (#8) provided an additional $1 billion in compensation stock awards to employees globally, and Northrop Grumman (#38) enhanced their annual bonus plan in addition to their ongoing stay interviews.
  • Mental health care is going mainstream across hiring and talent management. To keep employees healthy and happy at work, almost all of this year’s honorees now provide services that address mental health and well-being. Companies like Intel (#23), Salesforce (#28), and Juniper Networks (#46) provide dedicated mental health days, with many – including FedEx (#47) and Blackstone (#43) – offering company-paid mental health benefits. In addition, EY (#22) has expanded its no-cost counseling and mental health coaching sessions to 25 per year for employees and family. Deloitte (#11) provides a $1,000 well-being subsidy in addition to individualized psychological health resources. Unitedhealth Group (#13) provides complimentary access to wellness apps offering coaching, talk therapy, and more.
  • Authenticity, compassion, and curiosity are must-have skills. Most of the Top Companies do not require college degrees and instead look for soft skills that can translate across departments and roles. For example, the #1 skill Comcast (#10) seeks in new hires is authenticity, HCA Healthcare (#37) wants new hires to possess compassion, and Dell Technologies (#14) looks for people who thrive in an environment with a diversity of people and ideas. Accenture (#17), Oracle (#27), and Lockheed Martin (#29) value candidates with curiosity and eagerness to learn and grow. Alphabet (#2) looks for problem-solving skills and a growth mindset.

LinkedIn’s Top 50 Companies In The U.S., 2022

  1. Amazon
  2. Alphabet
  3. Wells Fargo
  4. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
  5. Walmart
  6. IBM
  7. AT&T
  8. Bank of America
  9. Apple
  10. Comcast
  11. Deloitte
  12. Meta
  13. UnitedHealth Group
  14. Dell Technologies
  15. CVS Health
  16. The Walt Disney Company
  17. Accenture
  18. Verizon
  19. GE
  20. Boeing
  21. Raytheon Technologies
  22. EY
  23. Intel
  24. Keller Williams
  25. Kaiser Permanente
  26. Target
  27. Oracle
  28. Salesforce
  29. Lockheed Martin
  30. Cisco
  31. Kimley-Horn
  32. PwC
  33. Cognizant
  34. Citi
  35. Citadel
  36. Johnson & Johnson
  37. HCA Healthcare
  38. Northrop Grumman
  39. Siemens
  40. Realogy
  41. Publicis Groupe
  42. Whiting-Turner
  43. Blackstone
  44. General Motors
  45. Capital One
  46. Juniper Networks
  47. FedEx
  48. Ford Motor Company
  49. Viasat
  50. MathWorks

 

Jan 17

Cybersecurity CEOs Share How Businesses Can Protect Themselves In 2022

Cybersecurity CEOs Share How Businesses Can Protect Themselves In 2022

Bottom Line: Every business needs to resolve in 2022 to treat cybersecurity as a business decision first because the risk to operations and revenue are too great if they don’t.

Any cybersecurity prediction for 2022 will likely be on the low side, given how ingenious ransomware attackers are at mining long-standing common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) and how intricate breach attempts are becoming.

Predictions don’t protect businesses, professional guidance does. Intending to provide every business, especially startups, with insights they can use to protect themselves in 2022, I’ve interviewed several cybersecurity CEOs. Their recommendations on what every business can do to improve their cybersecurity and avert a potential breach, ransomware attempt, or worse are provided below:

BOS Framework Founder and CEO Sashank Purighalla

Before BOS, Sashank founded and served as the CEO of 5Y Solutions, Inc., a DevOps company that provides SaaS and enterprise-class technology solutions based in the cloud, AR, VR, IoT, Media Streaming, and Big Data spaces. 5Y has offices in the US, Australia, and India. Much of Sashank’s 20+ years of experience has involved developing enterprise-class technology solutions, strong strategic and long-range planning, setting business and technology strategies in B2B and B2C environments, and leading and motivating diverse teams to build high-impact SaaS and PaaS products. Sashank has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Computer Science.

Advice from Sashank Purighalla Founder and CEO at BOS Framework

 “The biggest problem that enterprises are dealing with is with fractured technology architectures. The playbook for how technology systems are designed and maintained has fundamentally changed over the past 5 years with the advent of DevOps as a new disciple geared toward bringing efficiency to the PDLC process. To help meet this growing demand, there has been nearly a 570% increase in the number of known niche tools. Here’s the strange dichotomy: In the same timeframe, there has been an over 630% increase in the number of cyber breaches and over 600% increase in technology management and maintenance costs.

The fact is that you cannot patch disparate systems with non-standardized implementations using niche tools and expect to achieve security. Breach resilience and systemic integration can only result from sound systemic architectures that are based on best practices. 

Enterprises must shift their focus from thinking of the next tool for efficiency or patching gaps to consistent architectures for effective holistic outcomes. This is an ecosystem problem and can only be addressed at an organizational architecture level”.

Founder Shield Co-Founder & CEO Benji Markoff

Benji Markoff is the Co-Founder & CEO of Founder Shield. He has an obsession with culture and the science behind it. He wants his legacy to be the success and positivity that everyone who works at Founder Shield brings to the world, whether at Founder Shield or in any their future endeavors. He hopes that Founder Shield provides a platform for unlimited success and happiness for all that work there.

Advice from Benji Markoff, Co-Founder & CEO of Founder Shield

“It’s old news that cybercriminals have beefed up their attacks, with ransomware and phishing topping every bad actor’s to-do list, it seems. The pandemic spotlighted weak links in cybersecurity systems nationwide, and hackers didn’t waste one minute to attack — back door, front door, didn’t matter. Hybrid work schedules and burnt-out IT specialists make the waters even murkier. Naturally, cyber liability insurance is a hot commodity currently, and the insurance industry plays a significant role in helping companies stay protected. Unfortunately, the attacks keep coming. Flip the script, though, and all these negative headlines can serve as lessons learned. For starters, let’s remember that cross-functionality value also translates to cybersecurity training. The more employers raise awareness and implement in-depth training, the lower they’ll fall on a hacker’s checklist. Keep cybersecurity top-of-mind throughout your entire company. Also, don’t be shy about relying more heavily on your managed service provider (MSP). These companies are ever-broadening their scope of services. If eyes and ears are what you need, start negotiating new MSP contracts.”

Hexnode Founder and CEO Apu Pavithran

Apu Pavithran is the founder and CEO of Hexnode. Recognized in the IT management community as a consultant, speaker, and thought leader, Apu has been a strong advocate for IT governance and Information security management. In addition, he’s passionate about entrepreneurship and spends significant time working with startups and empowering young entrepreneurs.

Advice from Apu Pavithran, founder and CEO of Hexnode

“Enterprise customers in 2022 are looking for a seamless digital experience that they can adopt immediately. Unfortunately, while catering to this need businesses tend to overlook the cybersecurity risks involved in making this possible. 

In practice, cybersecurity decisions mostly take the backseat when associated with budgetary needs and business priorities, however, what comes with that is a successful ransomware attack that can completely turn the equation upside down.   So, while adopting a flexible working environment in a constantly changing IT landscape, I would strongly recommend having a device security policy and a UEM in place. This helps keep your sensitive information safe by making sure employee devices are always compliant. 

A patch management solution that comes along with the UEM solution will monitor your devices to make sure that there are no security vulnerabilities. The solution will also make sure that your device is running on the latest OS update and protected from threat actors. 

Endpoint security solutions like UEM’s will help secure businesses to an extent, But having the right tools can’t always ensure that your businesses are 100% secure. The biggest threat is always the human element in cyber security. So make sure that in your flexible work environment your employees are cyber aware with regular cyber awareness classes that cover updated cybersecurity best practices.”

Ivanti CEO Jeff Abbott

As CEO of Ivanti, Jeff Abbott oversees all aspects of the company’s growth strategy and direction. Before becoming CEO of Ivanti in October 2021, Jeff served as Ivanti’s President since January 2020. Jeff has over 25 years of experience working for enterprise software and services companies, including Accenture, Oracle, and Infor. Jeff holds degrees from the University of Tennessee and Georgia State University. He sits on the National Alumni Board at the University of Tennessee and has previously held board positions with the Georgia Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Posse Foundation.

Advice from Ivanti CEO Jeff Abbott:

The rapid shift to remote work has accelerated growth in new digital systems and workflows, leading to expanded enterprise attack surfaces. At the same time, threat actors have matured their tactics and targeted enterprise security gaps. For example, attackers have increasingly waged phishing attacks at mobile devices, which remote workers are using more than ever before, via text and SMS messages, instant messages, social media, and other modes of communication, beyond just corporate email. Ransomware has also continued to evolve, with attackers increasingly leveraging known vulnerabilities that have remote code execution and privilege escalation capabilities. Ransomware is a business, and threat actors are incentivized to find companies that are more likely to pay.

Organizations are struggling to proactively combat these growing cyber threats. A new study by Ivanti revealed that 71% of IT and security professionals found patching to be overly complex and time-consuming. 57% of respondents stated that the global transition towards a decentralized workspace has made patch management more complex to deal with. And 53% said that organizing and prioritizing vulnerabilities takes up most of their time. This is alarming because the longer vulnerabilities remain unpatched, the more exposed a business is at risk of an attack or ransomware. 

To effectively mitigate risk, companies should implement a Zero Trust security strategy. At its simplest, Zero Trust provides organizations continuous evaluation of their employee devices, endpoints, assets, and networks that business relies on. As part of an overall Zero Trust strategy, companies should invest in automated controls that proactively perform cyber hygiene tasks and reduce security risk across infrastructure and applications. This includes leveraging a combination of risk-based vulnerability prioritization and automated patch intelligence to identify and prioritize vulnerability weaknesses and then accelerate remediation. A proactive, end-to-end risk-based assessment strategy can drive business value and further reduce the mean time to detect, discover, remediate, and respond to cyber threats.

Orchestral Founder and EVP Dale Smith
As Orchestral’s Head of Revenue Technology & Operations, Dale leads the digital infrastructure team responsible for integrating customer-facing operations across marketing, sales, and customer success to deliver extraordinary customer experiences that accelerate revenue performance. Dale has over 30+ years of experience in the tech industry, including several roles that include engineering, marketing, business development, and product management. His current startup, Orchestral.ai, provides AI-enabled IT workflow automation & orchestration technologies that facilitate digital transformation for some of the world’s largest enterprises. 

Advice from Orchestral Founder and EVP Dale Smith

“Although there is an increasing amount of attention given to automation within the cybersecurity sector, there are still many gaps between the countless tools and SOAR/SIEM platforms found in a typical enterprise’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
To be sure, cybersecurity automation is a welcome and necessary focus for innovation in threat intelligence and response. But, as organization’s adopt cybersecurity automation, they are likely to discover that significant human intervention is still required to bridge the “silos of automation” that naturally develop around highly specialized security tools and platforms. It is at this point when the focus should shift to “cybersecurity orchestration”. Cybersecurity orchestration intelligently integrates all of the different and disparate tools, platforms and siloed automations so that information is shared across the entire cybersecurity infrastructure. In this context, cybersecurity automation and cybersecurity orchestration are complimentary stages of focus for developing security infrastructure capable of coordinating a truly “autonomous” threat response.”

Prometeo Co-Founder and CEO Rodrigo Tumaián

Rodrigo Tumaián is co-founder of Prometeo, a startup in the fintech area. He is also a co-founder of Truss, a company that provides information security services in the financial sector. His extensive experience working with national and international companies has enabled him to learn to adapt to any type of environment and help customers across a broad spectrum of business models, industries and revenue levels.

Advice from Prometeo Co-Founder and CEO Rodrigo Tumaián

“When we talk about Cybersecurity month to encourage awareness around the topic, we should keep in mind that it is something we must take action on every day.  The repercussions that are caused when we find ourselves in the middle of a problem or a serious cybersecurity issue, profoundly impact our digital ecosystem.  Constantly promote cybersecurity awareness – that’s what we’re focused on internally and with every customer – and we’re product of what we’re accomplishing with them and seeing them and we are very proud of what we have accomplished.”

Rapid.Space Founder and CEO Jean Paul Smets

Jean Paul is an entrepreneur, with 20 year experience and success in enterprise open source software for B2B markets. As Founder and CEO At Rapid.Space, he leads product and business development . Before Rapid.Space, Jean Paul founded Nexedi S.A the largest FLOSS publisher in the EU (4 M€ income). He founded VIFIB which invented edge computing in 2009 and contributed its technology to Rapid.Space. He holds a PhD in computer science, graduated from ENS Ulm and joined “corps des mines”.

Advice from Jean Paul Smets, Founder and CEO at Rapid.Space

 “If you use a cloud service, make sure  your cloud provider does not have access to your passwords or credentials (most have access and password leaks happen in average every year, as we all experienced). If you use containers, make sure you understand that they do not provide strong isolation (containers from other users on the same host may be able to access your sensitive data through security escalation, such as the one which happened to Azure in 9/2021)”

ThycoticCentrify CEO Art Gilliland

Art Gilliland is CEO at Centrify and brings proven success in the global enterprise software industry-leading large organizations in product development, enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, go-to-market strategy, and SaaS operations. He most recently was SVP/GM of the Symantec Enterprise Division of Broadcom, reporting to the CEO, where he led the integration and business operations post-acquisition. Before Symantec, Art held executive positions at Skyport Systems, HP, Symantec, and IMlogic.

Advice from ThycoticCentrify CEO Art Gilliland:

“As organizations execute on their digital transformations to adopt cloud and SaaS infrastructure it will become more essential to adopt tighter control over who has access to what. Investments in tighter controls over privileged access by using multi-factor authentication, centralizing identities, and enforcing least privilege can go a long way to securing modern infrastructure. This investment can not only make the user experience more seamless for those who need and should have access, but can also simultaneously harden defenses to reduce risk of becoming the next hack or ransomware victim.”   — Art Gilliland, CEO, ThycoticCentrify

Jan 11

How Services CPQ Helps Close Revenue Gaps

How Services CPQ Helps Close Revenue Gaps

Bottom Line: Professional services (PS) organizations need to close the gaps in their CPQ selling strategies to win more deals, capture more revenue and protect margins from ongoing price pressure.

Why Services CPQ Is Too Slow Today

When PS organizations compete in sales cycles, the first competitor to have a complete quote with accurate pricing, schedules, and an engagement plan will often win. However, getting a complete quote out fast is a major challenge for most PS organizations today. Many PS organizations manually create their quotes by taking into account a broad base of factors that include the following: talent profiles of employees and the market value of their skills; utilization rates; direct and indirect engagement costs; typical gross margins by type of engagement; and, competitive pricing. The average PS organization takes six weeks to deliver a quote or proposal. John Ragsdale’s excellent recent article Automating Services Quote-to-Cash: Emergence of CPQ for Services provides useful insights into what needs to change for PS quoting and selling to increase its velocity.

Getting Services CPQ Right Is Hard

Gaps that drain revenue and margin grow wider when PS organizations attempt to use product-centric CPQ platforms to sell services. Too often, PS organizations attempt to wedge their quoting, pricing, and revenue management into a product-based CPQ system – and get mediocre results at best. Earlier in my career, I led a product management team that defined, created, and launched a quoting system for professional services inside a large IT organization. The most valuable lessons learned from that experience include the following:

  • PS bundles only work if they have simple, solid direct cost structures. Adding a synthetic SKU that represents a PS bundle only works for the most simple, automated PS engagements. Think of those PS engagements with long-standing direct cost structures that are simple, clear and easy to implement. Attempting to group PS bundles can easily lead to quoting mistakes that drain margin when a product-centric CPQ system is used for PS.
  • The greater the differences in PS revenue management, the more the need for a new CPQ platform. Many PS organizations are making a mistake by attempting to make product-centric CPQ platforms work for their unique costing, pricing, and selling needs. My team and I learned that the more a PS revenue model is unique and one-of-a-kind, the more it requires a unique CPQ platform.
  • Getting product-based CPQ rules and constraint logic right is hard in PS. Our teams’ biggest challenge in recycling IT’s CPQ app for PS was how difficult it was to get the rules-based engine to work for the wide variety of variables in a common service engagement. Rules created for transaction velocity needed to be reworked for greater variety. PS engagements didn’t follow a common logic structure like a product, making the constraint logic code only somewhat usable.
  • Only launch after CRM and Revenue Management integration is complete. Our team was handed a project that had languished in IT for nearly a year because PS selling teams wouldn’t use it. The problem was that the quoting module ran batch updates to a series of databases to get customer records and fetch the latest price tables off of a mainframe. In addition, CPQ wasn’t connected in real-time to CRM or Revenue Management.

Closing Long-Standing Services CPQ Gaps

The more a Services CPQ app can close the gaps between CRM, PSA, Revenue Management, and CPQ apps and their workflows, the more effective it will be stopping margin and revenue leakage. Having APIs that share data in real-time between CRM, PSA, and Revenue Management within each quote creation session has the potential to save thousands of hours a year. FinancialForce’s recently announced Services CPQ shows how a platform-based integration strategy works. The following graphic shows how revenue potential increases as a Services CPQ’s systems become more integrated.

How Services CPQ Helps Close Revenue Gaps

FinancialForce’s approach to taking on the challenge of providing an enterprise-grade Services CPQ is noteworthy for several reasons, including the following:

  • Real-time visibility and control of Services CPQ Effectiveness. Having Services CPQ, PSA and Revenue Management on the same Salesforce platform provides the visibility and control PS sales managers need to track quoting effectiveness by program, geography, customer segment, and rep. The more real-time the data integration across these systems the greater the potential for revenue growth in existing accounts and winning new ones.
  • Changing professional services quotes in real-time without impacting sales cycles is possible. Due to the integrated design of Services CPQ, one change made anywhere on a quote will replicate through the entire system and change all related factors immediately.
  • Getting in control of professional services engagement dates and utilization rates by associates helps reduce time-to-market and assures better time-to-customer performance. Keeping track of the myriad of factors that influence a services quote using a manually-based process is too slow for how quickly engagements are decided. Instead, having a single, unified data model that can track effectiveness and provide updates on how they impact engagement project plans is needed to excel at selling with Services CPQ. Adopting an agile CPQ strategy that relies on an integration thread to unify all systems is the secret to scaling and selling more with an agile approach to services CPQ.
  • Pricing needs to be one of the core strengths in an integrated Services CPQ platform. Realizing how a customers’ requested changes to a professional services engagement will impact costs and margins gives PS teams with an integrated system a formidable pricing advantage. FinancialForce’s approach to solving the Services CPQ challenge shows the potential to take on this challenge and provide its PS customers with the insights they need to upsell engagements – and not lose margin doing it.
  • A must-have for any Services CPQ platform is support for channel partner collaboration and team quoting. For any Services CPQ to scale up and deliver its full potential value, there needs to be support for customizing partner selling experiences while providing for team selling and quoting. FinancialForce solves this by relying on the Salesforce platform. By closing the gaps between the systems Services CPQ relies on, the channel selling teams and partners gain greater flexibility in defining customized products.

Conclusion

Services CPQ needs to scale out on a platform to achieve its full potential by providing the analytical insights to track engagement lifecycles and customer lifetime value by engagement. FinancialForce has proven they can do this in their Spring 2021 release. Taking on the most challenging aspects of a Services CPQ architecture starts by providing insights and guidance on how best to optimize the mix of associates and their utilization and billing rates, locations of each engagement, margin threshold levels, and the expected duration of each engagement. Additionally, the world’s leading professional services organizations could use an automated Services CPQ solution as many of them don’t rely on enough data, letting revenue leakage happen without knowing it.

 

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