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"Overall, we're spending more on security, but I would be hard-pressed to say we are more secure."
That's a direct quote from a health care company IT executive in our CIO Habitat report on the shaky state of info security. And it's a pithy summary of what troubles executives most about security, which you'll find covered throughout this issue and in our special supplement, The Ultimate Spyware Defense Guide.
From a business standpoint, security always seems to be a subject of extremes. It's either competently under control and a bit more than boring background noise, or it's an imminent disaster involving hacked customer databases, stolen company information or help desks swamped with calls. Journalists actually love when the domain is in crisis mode, which is precisely the moment when companies don't want to talk about it.
"It's all coming down to an unpalatable choice," Thornton May writes in this issue's CIO Habitat report, which features exclusive survey results from 130 IT leaders. "Be secure or be profitable."
For CIOs in midmarket companies, the biggest struggle today can be mapping regulatory compliance with security spending, all the while enabling business growth and keeping costs down. That often leads to outsourcing some parts of the security infrastructure. In our story on this topic, we've compared varying approaches to security outsourcing among four midmarket firms. One is keeping all security in-house, while three are tapping into the resources of the $900 million sector of MSSPs (managed security service providers).
John Lambeth, vice president of IT at e-learning company Blackboard Inc., notes how the combination of security and compliance challenges "make more sense to outsource so the staff can stay focused on the core business objectives."
Stepping away from security concerns, our case study this month (Moving Parts, Losing Paper) looks into the $110 billion automotive aftermarket, where $1.6 billion CSK (known by its three brands: Checker Auto Parts, Schuck's Auto Supply and Kragen Auto Parts) is driving toward that elusive Holy Grail of the paperless corporation. The move involves PDAs, a data warehouse, signature scanners and upgrades of some elderly hardware in its retail stores.
On our cover this month are CIO Matthew Dattilo and Jeffrey Killian, director of global research and development operations for PerkinElmer Inc.'s Life and Analytical Sciences division, a $1 billion unit within the parent company. Their particular challenge (see our 2-Way Street executive interview) centers on another familiar dilemma for many midmarket companies: integrating the business in the aftermath of merger-and-acquisition activities. The pair found a way to keep some 450 widely dispersed scientists and engineers working on the company's most important R&D projects.
Finally, we've just established a new column called Podium to showcase IT commentary and opinion from our readers. Our first installment, from an experienced IT practitioner and educator, examines some original research on executive decision making at smaller enterprises. We'd love to welcome you to our podium as well, so if you'd like to step up, just drop us a line at Podium@ciodecisions.com.
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