Balancing Cyber Support and Costs for IT Leaders

When it comes to managing security tools, organizations can quickly discover that their existing security solutions are not realizing value as quickly as they had hoped. Solving this issue may require reaching out to the vendor for support, which may come with a heavier cost, further reducing the potential for real ROI.

Email security solutions should not only protect an organization and its operations, but they should reduce overall costs and save money by eliminating a large amount of the cost of cybersecurity incidents. ROI and cost savings should also factor in the cost of receiving support from the vendor during security incidents. While recognizing ROI may not happen immediately, the business should recognize a positive impact relatively quickly.

IT admins should never feel as if they are not getting all the value out of a product that they were promised at the time of purchase, including if that value is not being realized because the product was not implemented or provisioned properly, which in turn, can require more support costs. 

Cyber risk tends to increase during economic downturns, but leaders can make cost-effective investments to boost their defenses. For instance, human error, social engineering, ransomware, and insider threats typically rise during and after economic downturns, but IT budgets trend down, so it’s critical to be precise about cyber investments during challenging times. 

The bottom line is that organizations should never feel like they are being duped by an inexpensive initial contract and huge price increase at renewal, especially when that email security solution may not have delivered on its expectations during a lengthy contract period. In addition, organizations should also never feel that they are underutilizing the product because it takes too many resources to get to a point at which they are seeing ROI.

Beyond ROI, however, IT admins need to be mindful about the amount of vendor support required and the cost of that support. If a product’s policies are complicated, they’ll require more support tickets, which can quickly burn through support budgeting. And, competing with larger accounts for vendor support time isn’t just disappointing, it’s a drain on valuable resources at small-to-medium businesses.

Organizations should never struggle to get email security vendors’ attention, nor experience lengthy wait times to fix issues. Mimecast understands the many challenges organizations can face when needing to transition to a new cybersecurity solution because of a lack of ROI or overwhelming support costs and is stepping in to help. Email security is just so important that we are willing to lend a hand when it comes to transition costs. Organizations that are ready to take advantage of Mimecast’s Bridge Program should reach out today.