I tell my wife Jayne all the time what we really do in our business is to sell time. We save our customers lots of time, so I guess it is really what we sell, isn’t it? IT departments have a heavy workload and any solution, regardless of how cool it is, that eats up that time … well, you will have a problem. It is important to understand where and how they spend their time so you can optimize it. Take work away from them.

What can you as a company do to streamline the implementation and the long-term operational, service and maintenance workloads? The silver bullet for this is B.E.T.D.B.W. IT departments love acronyms, so throw them a curve: Be easy to do business with. I know; I should have been in marketing.

Security Can Help Justify IT Budgets

The next value-added strategy to consider is helping the IT department build a strong case for expanding/updating a network infrastructure. This is a strategy I truly love to work with because it just plain works about 80 percent of the time. There are a couple of reasons to consider this as a strategy to deliver value.

People who work with technology typically like the next new wave of network and appliance evolution. Unlike many of your conventional security solution buyers, technology customers view the “lifecycle” of products. IT customers consider three to four years the outside lifecycle of their components. Could we say the same for the buyers of security products?

While we in the security world are relative neophytes to the world of network technology and politics, the IT department must be fiscally responsible to the economic realities of today. Here is a strategy I have used the past nine years with clients and customers that you may want to consider.

It is rare that you would add security subsystems to unaltered, existing networks. There are way too many issues that can arise unless they are gigabyte to the switch and average utilization rates that are in the 20-25 percent range. However, there are lots of ways to retool a network using an existing infrastructure that may be “old” in IT terms, but work just fine for security solution needs. So how does this provide value for your IT rowing crew?

It creates a defensible upgrade budget request that allows them to migrate to newer technology, and still leverage past IT investments for lowering security system solution implementation. Start with understanding network loading factors in a traditional sense, and then get a little innovative by playing the “what if” game with owners of the network. Collaborative discussions, when built on trust, yield amazingly powerful alliances that get results and projects funded.

“Can do easy” was my U.S. Marine Corps squadron’s motto. Make it yours with your IT customers!

Paul Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting (www.matterhornconsulting.com). He has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience and can be contacted at [email protected].

 

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