Coming Soon! Security Magazine’s Most Influential Report. The Most Influential will be profiled in the August 2012 issue of Security magazine and online at www.securitymagazine.com in front of more than 36,000 industry peers.
The Security 500 tracks 19 vertical markets and collects unique data where appropriate (such as patients in healthcare) and applies this data to key metrics.
Witness, if you will, 50 years of security art and science collapsed into the post 9/11 decade. When the dot com era burst, many venture dollars were looking for a place to work. 9/11, sadly, happened and was followed by many changes, including the creation of DHS and the promises to “inspect every bag at airports,” which led to the venture capital and curious question: Inspect them with what? The need rose, the money poured in. Innovation followed.
Performance metrics are “critically important” to business leaders, says Greg Niehaus, Professor of Finance and Insurance for the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. “In my view it’s very important for business functions to have metrics that tie back to the objectives of the organization – that measure the impact on value and value creation.” If a function fails to develop and effectively communicate performance metrics, says Niehaus, “their contributions to the organization will likely be not appreciated, which, in down times, could lead to cutting of responsibilities or jobs and hurting the value of the organization.”
For CNA, profitable growth – domestically and internationally – is among its winning strategies. This, combined with a more mobile workforce, has generated new opportunities and involvement from the global commercial insurer’s security team. Among the bigger challenges for Chief Security Officer Bill Phillips is supporting expansion initiatives while maintaining a global, yet lean organization.
Many large organizations are beginning to add the position of chief security officer (CSO) to the C-suite. This is great news as it highlights the benefits and importance of a well-designed security unit as a business function. However, some recent trends suggest that some organizations still may misunderstand the impact and role of security.
Last month we talked about the knowledge transfer gap that exists in the security profession. We posited that the best of the best of security practitioners don’t have the time to teach their successors how to become future-oriented, business-aligned organizational influencers, and that the business-focused training programs available for security professionals do a great job of talking business, but they fail to marry business processes with the job of risk mitigation.
Each year, Security magazine honors top security executives who positively affect the security industry, their organization, their colleagues and their peers. They change the security landscape for the better. They are nominated by their colleagues and associates, and they are chosen based upon their leadership qualities and the overall positive impact that their security projects, programs or departments have on their shareholders, organizations, colleagues and the general public.
Adding business value. Getting a seat at the table. Running security like a business. Aligning security with the organization. These are the contents of the Holy Grail of security leadership. Everybody talks about them. Everybody wants them. But most security leaders view them as the stuff of legend – great for motivation, but unattainable in reality.
