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Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer, ManageEngine, joins Neha Kulkarni to discuss why the pace of digital transformation is so challenging and how companies can stay ahead of the competition. Sundaram talks about how CIOs are measuring the success of low-code apps and addressing challenges arising from the rise of shadow IT.
In this Tech Talk, Sundaram explains how CIOs assess the need to invest in AI and ML to prevent cyberattacks. He also discusses IT investments that will help businesses improve their security posture and reduce costs in 2023 and beyond.
Key points on how to strengthen your cybersecurity practices:
- Implement systems and controls that can be federated across functional groups
- Create a common infrastructure to manage, deploy and audit all software
- Invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to find predictable or suspicious patterns
Below is an edited excerpt from an exclusive interview with Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer of ManageEngine.
Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer, ManageEngine
SWNI: It’s been a busy year for the IT industry since the pandemic started. But as the clouds of the pandemic recede, how should the IT and technology industry prepare for the next uncertainties?
Vijay: It’s no surprise that IT teams have become the enterprise heroes of the pandemic. Many companies would not have survived the first few weeks, let alone the last two years, if IT had not risen to the occasion.
The role of IT has expanded dramatically from supporting the business to ensuring business viability and entering the decision-making table. This has led to an increasing decentralization of IT across the enterprise, especially in the United States.
Many IT functions are, of course, handled within departments or business units and are under IT scrutiny rather than being completely controlled. This provides a tremendous opportunity for the IT department to influence strategic decisions and drive the company’s overall success, while acting as a partner to the department head.
see next: Be aware of cybersecurity threats across your supply chain
SWNI: From the tech talent shortage to the democratization of IT, organizations face unprecedented challenges in the post-pandemic era. Why is the pace of digital transformation so challenging? And how do you think companies can beat the competition?
Vijay: Digital transformation changes the way companies have worked throughout their history. Even if the values are transformative, there are few precedents to learn from and many obstacles. This involves changes in just about everything: people, organizational processes, data exchange, and communication.
The massive disruption caused by the pandemic has forced all this change to occur almost instantaneously just to keep the organization running its business. The good news is that it has demonstrated the value of technology and how essential it is for organizations to jump on the bandwagon. This transformation requires different groups within the company to work together to share data and integrate business processes.
CIOs can plan for this by starting with specific goals. For example, you can start integrating all customer aspects.g This includes marketing and lead generation, sales and account management, customer support and service.
This is a difficult task in itself, but it really pays off because it needs to be clearly explained from the customer’s point of view. This reduces organizational resistance and internal opposition, allowing the company to focus on a smaller set of functional groups and build pragmatic systems that deliver early success.
SWNI: Let’s talk about democratizing IT with low-code applications. Several studies have found that low-code applications are not explicitly sanctioned and that the rise of shadow IT poses a major security challenge for IT teams. How should CIOs measure the success of low-code apps and address these challenges?
Vijay: As more employees use low-code and no-code tools, it’s imperative that IT can help. A recent study by ManageEngine found that Leveraging IT: 2022 and Beyond, almost all (98%) IT decision makers have more technical skills in at least one function within their organization, particularly marketing (52%), finance (45%), and sales (43%). He said he needs to be trained. Ironically, these teams are most likely to use low-code and no-code application development tools. This suggests that these teams are either misusing or underutilizing these technologies and need greater support from IT.
CIOs must first take on the role of education. Organizations need to be made aware of the risks associated with lax cybersecurity, poor privacy controls, and the threat of malicious actors. These are existential threats to most organizations.
Unusual IT initiatives amplify this risk. CIOs can implement systems and controls that can be federated across functional groups within the company, encouraging compliance without feeling subordinated to a central IT group. Finally, CIOs can create a common infrastructure for managing, deploying, and auditing all software in their company, both procured and homegrown.
see next: The Biggest Threat for Small Businesses: Why Cybersecurity is Everyone’s Responsibility
SWNI: The IT at Work: 2022 and beyond research highlights that talent shortage is the number one barrier to IT technology adoption. What simple steps can CIOs take to close the talent gap in their organization?
Vijay: As CIOs tend to seek out experienced talent, they need to change their hiring practices. This leads to multiple companies bidding for the same scarce talent, driving up costs and exacerbating talent shortages.
This means companies need to have long-term plans for recruiting, training, and growing their IT talent.
This means looking for people who may not have the right education, but who have the IT career promise, initiative and drive to grow and excel in the role. may occur.
SWNI: Another trend highlighted in the survey is that 55% of organizations have invested in AI and ML to prevent cyberattacks.However, investing in AI comes at a cost. How can CIOs assess the need to invest in AI and ML to prevent cyberattacks?
Vijay: Cyberattacks are not an inconvenience. They are existential threats with huge costs in reputation and liability. Investing in cybersecurity deterrence is like investing in insurance. You cannot operate without insurance. CIOs can look at multiple areas to assess their cybersecurity needs.
The most common types of attacks are social engineering such as phishing and impersonation. These can be addressed by performing pattern recognition on large volumes of email and looking for anomalies or warning signals. A related area is authentication.
AI and ML systems can look for predictable or suspicious patterns, such as logins from multiple devices, from different physical locations, and occurring within short time intervals, so additional checks can be imposed. .
These systems learn from repeated intrusion attempts, so they learn and improve with each attempt. This results in fewer false negatives and a faster return on investment.
see next: Endless Journey to Zero Trust Architecture
SWNI: As technology paradigms continue to shift rapidly, which IT investments will help businesses improve their security posture and reduce costs in 2023 and beyond?
Vijay: Strengthening cybersecurity practices, communicating them to all employees, and ensuring compliance should be a priority for any company with a digital footprint. However, what we see in this report are the big differences between who in the company. need to do it Heads of Cybersecurity Initiatives and Their Responsibilities actually responsible person.
90% of North American respondents agree that everyone in their organization should play a role in cybersecurity efforts.
However, when asked directly who is responsible for protecting their organization from cyberattacks, only 4% of respondents said “everyone”. Business her leaders will close this gap by further fostering collaboration between the IT department and the rest of the organization, and by making all employees, not just the IT department, responsible for cyber security. I have to.
About Vijay Sundaram
Vijay Sundaram is Chief Strategy Officer at ManageEngine and Zoho, as well as Head of Partner and Channel Programs. He is an entrepreneur and company founder in the fields of cloud his supply his chain software, mobile advertising technology and renewable energy. He has led product, sales, business development and finance teams within these organizations. Vijay enjoys working with senior management to brainstorm and troubleshoot complex business problems that cross functional and organizational boundaries.
About the managed engine
ManageEngine is Zoho Corporation’s enterprise IT management division. Established start-ups, including 9 of his 10 Fortune 100 companies, rely on ManageEngine’s real-time IT management to ensure optimal performance of their IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, endpoints, and more. It’s tool dependent.
About Tech Talk
Tech Talk is an interview series featuring prominent CTOs and senior technology executives from around the world. Join us in a conversation with these tech and his IT leaders who share their insights and research on data, analytics and emerging technologies. If you are a tech expert and would like to share your thoughts, neha.pradhan@swzd.com
How is your organization strengthening and expanding its cybersecurity practices? Share your findings on Facebook. twitterand LinkedIn.
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