In today’s digital-first world, businesses rely on technology for virtually everything they do. But digital innovations, such as AI, often outpace the measures companies take to safeguard their systems and respond to disruptions.
Many organizations still approach cybersecurity and IT disruptions as isolated technical failures rather than as fundamental business risks. IT teams, cybersecurity experts, and business leaders operate with different goals and processes, work independently of one another, and speak different languages. Incidents like the global CrowdStrike outage in July 2024, which temporarily crippled airlines, banks, and hospitals, are a direct outcome of this disconnect.
During a recent incident training exercise conducted with the CEO and executive team of a large US health care company, participants struggled to identify who was responsible for cross-functional tasks and how to coordinate the different parts of the business. The exercise also highlighted critical management gaps.
The solution is to synchronize the business, IT, and security teams by aligning incentives, fostering collaboration, and embedding cybersecurity and resiliency within the broader business strategy. This is a people and organization issue as much as a technical one. It belongs on the agenda of every “digital CEO.”
The Cost of Disconnection
Organizations often respond to digital disruptions by focusing narrowly on compliance or threat mitigation without addressing the broader business impact. This disconnected approach leaves vulnerabilities unchecked. For instance, assets that seem trivial to IT may be important to the business. It also wastes critical time and resources and delays business recovery.
Regulators have taken notice. They recognize that poor cybersecurity and privacy practices pose risks to economic stability, investor transparency, and consumer well-being. The rapid introduction of AI, which is developing faster than any other technology and is the subject of numerous evolving regulations, raises the stakes. Regulators are starting to hold executives and boards of directors directly responsible for digital disruptions and data breaches.
Organizations have responded by improving rather than rethinking their existing processes. They tighten the screws, but excessive compliance and controls often create rigidities that impede AI and other digital initiatives. Our clients say that cybersecurity concerns have slowed innovation,
digital transformation,
and the rollout of AI-based solutions.
A Battle of the Silos
The IT, security, and business teams have historically had a hands-off relationship with one another. Cooperation has not been the norm.
IT Teams: The Pressure to Innovate. IT teams are responsible for implementing new technologies and driving digital transformation at an unprecedented pace. With mounting pressure to meet tight deadlines, they often prioritize functionality and features over security.
Moreover, some IT leaders regard security processes as overly bureaucratic and opt to bypass them to save time. The absence of foundational processes, such as robust asset management or enterprise architecture, makes it difficult to track and secure digital infrastructure effectively.
Security Teams: Risk Averse and Isolated. Security teams, entrusted with safeguarding the organization, frequently operate in isolation. Their risk-averse mindset, essential for mitigating threats, can create friction with IT and business teams.
Security leaders are incentivized to avoid breaches at all costs, sometimes to the detriment of innovation. Their typical communication style—laden with technical jargon and dense metrics—can alienate other stakeholders. Unsurprisingly, security teams are often excluded from the early stages of digital initiatives, such as AI proofs of concept, limiting their ability to integrate effective safeguards.
Business Leaders: A Limited Understanding of Cyber Risk. Business leaders focus on strategic priorities such as
revenue growth,
customer engagement, and operational efficiency. While they recognize cybersecurity’s importance, many lack the technical fluency needed to assess risks or prioritize investments effectively. This gap often leads to an overreliance on IT and security teams, without ensuring sufficient oversight or alignment. When disruptions occur, business leaders may be unprepared to coordinate an effective response.
Synchronizing for Success: A Unified Approach
Synchronizing the IT, security, and business teams is the best way to protect the most important business services, test risk scenarios, and ensure effective training, awareness, and communication. Several critical measures will enable companies to transform cybersecurity and digital resilience into a competitive advantage.
Align goals and incentives. Organizations must formulate a unified set of objectives that balance the priorities of all stakeholders. For example, KPIs can measure the speed of IT delivery, the security of AI deployments, and the contribution of those deployments to business goals such as customer trust or market competitiveness. To encourage collaboration, IT, security, and business teams should have shared incentives.
Develop a common language. The lack of a shared vocabulary that is not overly technical is a significant barrier to synchronization. When IT, security, and business leaders speak past one another, confusion and delays are inevitable. A unified incident classification system will ensure that an IT incident with security implications is immediately escalated to the appropriate teams.
Training sessions or workshops can further embed this shared language, fostering mutual understanding and collaboration. Technical people need to “speak business” better, and businesspeople need to understand basic digital concepts. All employees need to know how to protect data, regardless of whether it is used in large language model prompts, resides in a database, or is stored in a text file.
Empower the right talent. Building a synchronized organization requires leaders who can bridge the technical and business divide. Security leaders should immerse themselves in the company’s operations, from touring factory floors to engaging with sales teams. Similarly, IT and business leaders should develop a better understanding of the critical role of cybersecurity, inviting security teams into strategic discussions from the outset.
Enable mature interconnected processes. Organizations must integrate cybersecurity into core IT and business workflows, such as enterprise architecture, asset management, and incident management. These processes should be designed to facilitate seamless collaboration, enabling teams to respond quickly and effectively to disruptions.
Achieving synchronized IT, security, and business teams is a complex but essential undertaking. It requires sustained leadership, investment, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Organizations that embrace synchronization will unlock the full potential of their digital initiatives, while reducing the impact of data breaches and operational disruption when incidents do occur (and they will). They will also position themselves as leaders in resilience, innovation, and growth.
