CIO OPINION
It is important to be compliant and have strong risk management , but that can be negated if CISOs do not deliver outcomes . It is all about the results .
Jonathan Nguyen-Duy , Vice President , Global Field CISO , Fortinet
African CISOs responsible for enabling business as well
The African CISO ’ s role is no longer about protecting the organisation from cyber threats and is now also a key business enabler , tasked with managing risk and delivering business value says Jonathan Nguyen-Duy at Fortinet .
The role of a CISO now consists of much more than just risk management and compliance . CISOs are now routinely consulted on business issues because digitised business processes are critical to any enterprise ’ s success , so cybersecurity is therefore a board-level concern . Indeed , cybersecurity is at the heart of most enterprise businesses because of e-commerce and the digital marketplace .
For example , e-commerce , whether business-tobusiness or business-to-consumer transactions all depend on consistently good user experiences to deliver business outcomes . And this requires consistently good networking , security , and computing performance . Many organisations ’ leadership teams recognise the business value of cybersecurity that comes from its ability to enable trusted communications and better user experiences . It is now clear that enabling responsive computing operations is key to ensuring consistently good user experiences .
In short , today ’ s CISO ’ s role is no longer about protecting the organisation from cyber threats . The CISO is now a key business enabler and leader , tasked with managing risk and delivering business value . Below are suggestions for how CISOs can help generate better business outcomes for their organisations .
1 . Vendor consolidation
There is widespread agreement that more tools from more vendors is not a viable approach to
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