F our times a year on average, business executives, including but not limited to CFOs, CEOs, and department heads, sit down around a rectangular table facing a whiteboard or projector screen. At the top of the whiteboard, written in red marker, it reads “Key Business Risks.” They have a detailed report in front of them with worst-case-scenario line items like compliance failure, building risks like fire, and human risks like injury, then somewhere down on that list is “cybersecurity.” On that item, the conversation is brief. It’s not the executive’s problem; after all, that’s why they have an IT team. “Let’s make sure data is protected and our systems are secure,” they say, and everyone at the table agrees. They assign their IT tech to the task and check the box. Done and dusted, right? Not quite. WELCOME TO THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION Before the digital age, it was routine for businesses to leave tech conversations within the IT department — outside of larger dialogues around operations. IT was tucked away in a back office, taking care of abstruse coding and software installations, and the business plugged along.
Today, we’re in the mid-digital age, the dual- sided coin of digital transformation where, on the one side, nearly every business uses some level of technology, like apps, scanners, or mobile devices, to connect processes and execute business strategy across the entire enterprise. The other side of the coin is more problematic: Though businesses use digital tools prolifically, they don’t fully grasp the risk that ineffective technology practices pose to their business. Keeping discussions about technology isolated in the IT department is the root of the problem. What happens when their business tech suddenly stops working? Is confidential information or customer loyalty at stake? What separates a business that thrives from a business that flounders — or
Gary Tonniges Jr., CPA & CEO Of TriQuest Technologies
Is Reliable IT At The Top Of Your Customers’ Risk Management? It Should Be! In the past, cybersecurity and tech have stayed in the IT department. Today, CFOs must lead the conversation about cybersecurity business risks or jeopardize the business altogether.
closes entirely — is whether they are having conversations at the executive level about how reliable IT impacts business strategy and business risk.
It’s a conversation that CFOs need to initiate. If they don’t, they leave vulnerabilities on the table ripe for exploitation. Money isn’t the only thing it will cost them. Odds are it will cost them the entire business. Data from the National Cybersecurity Alliance reports that 60% of SMBs that suffer a cyberattack go out of business within six months. 1 TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED PROCESSES What gets businesses thinking in the right way is to see the big picture and lay out their most essential processes: the steps, tools, and people they use to get their product or service from the factory floor to their customers. How many of these processes require technology to complete? Imagine what would happen if, during those processes, technology stopped working. Here’s an example: A
1 www.sec.gov/news/statement/cybersecurity-challenges-for-small-midsize-businesses.html
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