Proving the ROI of Better Network Security to your C-Level Executive

Let's face it:  Explaining the value of better network security for your growing organization can be tough.  Executives are hopefully guiding a growing company towards enterprise level, and your org has already reached over 300 employees.  

IT costs are rising, and the time investment to keep all of your systems patched and secured from attacks causes you to maintain rather than transform your IT stack.

This effect of your growing org is further exacerbated by sometimes constant scrutiny of those rising IT costs.  A SMB owner wants to see operating expenses under control as the business grows, and your Network is costing more and more to maintain every day.

Here are a few simple dollars and cents arguments you can make to a C-Level executive about how good security can actually benefit the bottom line:

Describe the Cost of Attacks on Internal Resources:

Plugging your org's info into a formula like this is really easy:

1. My organization size: 700
2. Average Salary for your org:  $50,000/year
3. Percentage of employees affected by the attack: 50%, or 350 employees
4. Average loss of productivity: 75%
5. Number of days to resolve: 1
6. Productivity hours lost: 2,100
7. Productivity cost in hours lost:  $52,500.00

This is just one example of how quickly the costs can pile up if a substantial attack happens and gets resolved that day.  

And that's just the internal story. 

Describe Customer Loss and PR Risk

C-Level folks in the SMB space also focus hard on growing new AND returning customers as the business grows.  

What if the security problem somehow makes its way public?

Talk about the financials, and remember that the founder/owner does not want to see this:

1. Yearly revenue of the company:  $52 million
2. Average weekly revenue: $1 million
3. Size of public exposure:  Widespread
4. Customer loss over 2 weeks due to public exposure:  3%
5. Revenue loss over 2 weeks:  $60,000

When these two problems are combined, the financial argument becomes easier and easier to see more clearly.  

If you would like to add even more depth to your argument, consider getting a free security assessment from one of our experts.