I was reading an article recently which outlined the different agencies employed within the United Kingdom to protect against cyber-threats.  Not including the armed forces, who would have specialist roles to play in any particular cyber-threat scenario, it transpires that there are 18(!) different players covering this space, each with overlapping strategies, policies and expenditure.  The formal report, from the UK Government’s Intelligence & Security Committee, was wonderfully understated, speaking of "confusion and duplication of effort".

Such difficulties bring to mind the challenges we face in our global organizations, which are often made up from different corporate entities.  Similar issues can happen to our security management functions - we overlap, overspend and contradict – all to the detriment of the enterprise as a whole. Managing a global information security function in an optimal manner is no easy task; it takes careful planning, an understanding of essential roles & responsibilities and the ability to manage some elements remotely.

I’ve recently published two papers relating to these very topics. If you are considering a reorganization, or just interested in what top performing security organizations look like right now, check out these links:

• Define A Road Map To Accelerate The Organizational Maturity Of Your Security Program
• Build A Strategic Security Program And Organization