Cybersecurity will continue to be a priority for all businesses in 2022. According to Gartner’s latest Emerging Risks Monitor Report, ransomware in particular is an even greater concern for executives than pandemic-related issues, including supply chain disruptions. To counteract this and limit the potential damage of an attack, businesses will treat cybersecurity as a business-critical function with subsequent investment in new solutions.
But simply saying that there will be cybersecurity investment is an oversimplification. The decision-making process for how businesses allocate resources to reinforce their defences is complicated by market conditions and the changing landscape of how and where we work.
When employees work from one location, on one network, on specific devices, threats are relatively predictable and easy to mitigate against. In the hybrid world of work, however, where employees work on multiple devices that connect to public and private networks in any number of locations, the threats become a lot harder to predict. This means that flexibility and the ability to scale and upgrade will define cybersecurity investment in 2022.
“The key for the channel to capitalise on cybersecurity investments in 2022 is to meet the new demands of the market and changing environments”
Businesses need to be able to protect all their data, devices and people, wherever they work. As staff numbers rise and fall, and restrictions covering office working are enforced or relaxed, so too must cybersecurity capabilities adapt, flex and scale.
But this hybrid environment is much hard to protect and secure. We will see investment in SASE and Zero Trust Network Access solutions as a result. But businesses struggling to get a handle on the expanded threat surface or the complexity of their IT will look to outsource management to MSPs and MSSPs.
The ongoing supply chain and talent shortages will also contribute to how cybersecurity will be approached in 2022. Traditionally, cybersecurity was implemented with specialised hardware and software solutions managed by an internal IT team with expertise in cybersecurity. With hardware increasingly hard to procure due to shortages and supply chain disruption, the shift to software and subscriptions will accelerate.
The key for the channel to capitalise on cybersecurity investments in 2022 is to meet the new demands of the market and changing environments, from secure home working and cloud adoption to 5G, marketplaces and managed services. The flexibility and agility of our partners will help them to meet these needs – or risk being left behind.
The most important element is to offer flexibility and choice through a comprehensive portfolio of cloud and as-a-Service solutions first and foremost, supported by flexible payment solutions and subscription models that help drive adoption and deliver predictable recurring revenues for the solution supplier.
By Daniel Hurel, Vice President, Westcon EMEA – Cyber Security & Next Gen Solutions
To learn more about the key trends set to transform the channel in 2022, download our latest Channel Trends eBook.
Sourced from: Westcon-Comstor News. View the original article here.
