June 11, 2020
This post is the fourth in a five-part series where we’ll be digging into why SecDevOps enables every department in an enterprise – not just Security and Development – to do their job better. The favorite phrase of security teams today is that “Security is everybody’s responsibility” – which it is – but often fails to link back why it also makes everybody’s job easier. Implementing good SecDevOps isn’t just about reducing cyber threats, it’s about being productive and finding new opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. This post will focus on why Marketing Teams want a good SecDecOps program.
Sometimes, Marketing can feel the furthest away from SecDevOps as they’re one of the most “Front-of-the-House” departments, while Development and Security are working their magic in the Back of the House. However, as Marketing’s mission is to build the company’s presence, reputation, and lead funnel, in some ways they’re most closely aligned with Dev and Sec than any other department.
Marketing wants to brag about their company – the new features, colossal milestones, great reputation. And they can’t do that when Development is stuck cleaning up security debt instead of working on innovative features, and Security doesn’t have the tools to effectively deploy their programs to combat adversaries. And that’s where SecDevOps comes in to help Markeitng on their mission by ensuring customers can trust their brand with well deployed and integrated AppSec and letting Development and Security teams focus on being strategic, instead of cleaning up backlogs.
What is Marketing responsible for?
- Managing the Company Brand
- Listening & Analyzing to Customer Feedback
- Tracking Consumer Trends
- Educating Customers & Prospects
What is Marketing’s ultimate goal?
Generate tons of qualified leads!
How does SecDevOps help?
- Builds and Strengthens Brand Awareness
- Increases Lead Generation
- Keeps Customers Happy
SBrand
Marketing has enormous external facing responsibilities which can quickly become a nightmare if security breaches occur. All it takes is just one critical breach to damage a company’s brand. You don’t have to look far to find an example: Target, Equifax, Yahoo and many more show just how quickly a brand’s reputation can take a hit.
Brand is all about who the company is and how they present themselves to the world. Companies need to take this seriously because they only get one brand reputation – which is built on trust. Thinking of this as a pyramid with trust at the base, the company’s innovation and customer service make up the rest of the pyramid. Security is trust. This is why it’s so important that Marketing gets their company to have a reliable SecDevOps program. This reduces the risk of breaches, which can severely tarnish a company’s brand. SecDevOps protects the application and the brand!
People want to do business with companies they trust the most which is why brand reputation is vital to a company’s success. Companies that use a SecDevOps process get that security that builds the customer’s trust and at the same time also get to be true innovators because they’re no longer wasting time fixing and debugging security issues and putting out fires.
Lead Generation
Driving lead generation is essential in growing a company’s customer base. Effective messaging to potential customers typically highlights the product’s innovative features and how they meet the customer’s needs. Customers are always looking for innovators. Innovation is indispensable when competing for better positioning.
Great Marketing teams understand that to deliver innovative features faster than competitors, the development team cannot be bogged down by mundane security fixes piling up in the backlog. They understand a good SecDevOps process frees up time by focusing on security issues and policies that are the most important, which in turn gives more time for development teams to innovate. SecDevOps captures and sustains this competitive advantage by increasing productivity for the lifecycle of the product. When development teams focus on creating innovative products, Marketing can focus on messaging those innovations to potential clients.
Not only can Marketing create lead generation campaigns that message innovation, but they can say that their application is safe and secure. They can say to customers and potential customers that the company is doing the best they can to prevent breaches and other security threats. This will inevitably capture the attention of prospective customers and even convert leads to revenue generating customers.
Happy Customers
What company doesn’t want happy customers? Happy customers are more loyal, they spend more, and they help generate more leads which results in more revenue. When developers aren’t constantly stuck in the tiring cycle of fixing security holes and bugs, the team can rapidly ship more innovative products which results in happy customers.
Happy customers will abandon companies that break their trust by not preventing breaches from happening. In security, it’s common to say “It’s not if you get a breached, it’s when you get breached.” There’s no such thing as perfect security, but there’s most certainly poor and irresponsible security. With good SecDevOps, you can minimize the risk of it being a critical trust-breaking breach because SecDevOps prevents and prioritizes security risks and issues and also ensures configurations are correct based on each project’s specifications. SecDevOps also provides a process of informing customers at the right time with the right information if a breach does occur which is also crucial in maintaining customer trust and keeping them happy.
Interested in learning more about how you can get the benefits of SecDevOps? Schedule a time to chat here.
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