Nearly two-thirds of the global population will have internet access by next year, according to Cisco’s Annual Internet Report (2018-2023) White Paper. There will be 5.3 billion total internet users (66% of the global population) by 2023, up from 3.9 billion (51% of the global population) in 2018. With this growth in internet usage, the need to secure sensitive data across industries has never been more relevant, especially in light of global events ushering in an increase in attacks on data.

To prepare to defend your data, you need a strategy that can keep up with today’s environment. You want to be an innovator, a trendsetter and, most of all, a security leader. That requires a comprehensive strategy as you move forward. As technology continues to advance, the need for greater security will increase as well.

The cloud journey

The number of data breaches was 17% higher in 2021 than in 2020. The manufacturing and utility sector was affected the most, followed by health care, which saw more than 40 million patient records breached. Ransomware attackers earned about $590 million in the first half of 2021, which surpassed 2020’s total estimated earnings of $416 million.

It’s no secret that it takes a detailed strategy and a trusted partner to protect your data. Are you struggling to keep up? As a starting point, take a look at these five signs that you might need guidance through your data security journey.

Not enough skills

Managing your company’s security that focuses on the most crucial gems of the business is serious work. It requires the skills of those best in the business. With how complex modern security strategies can be, your team may be working within multiple environments across many different vendors. To make matters worse, skilled workers are in short supply.

Lack of direction

The security industry is ever-changing. The tech in our everyday world advances at a breakneck pace, changing how work in security must be done. By 2022, 70% of companies will be using hybrid multicloud platforms as part of a distributed IT infrastructure, according to McKinsey. By 2025, more than 75% of enterprise-generated data will be processed by edge or cloud computing.

Software sourced by companies from cloud-service platforms, open repositories and software-as-a-service providers will rise from 23% today to nearly 50% in 2025. As a result, leaders in security need to understand the direction their companies are headed and ensure proper protections are put into practice.

Too much to handle

Many companies find themselves growing quickly, realizing that their IT infrastructure is becoming too much to handle. They are mired in tool sprawl and looking to scale and provision technologies quickly. In an ideal world, those will be technologies that integrate and work together well. However, they lack the capital to invest in new hardware, software and skilled workers.

Short-sighted strategy

Often, organizations will build their security strategy for the current project rather than the future. This is understandable, considering the speed at which the security landscape changes. But the pull of having an adaptive strategy for the long term is always present, even if seemingly unattainable.

Too expensive

Everything comes down to one thing: budget. Given the recent events across the industry, it should be apparent to leadership in all roles that skimping on the security budget is never a good idea. However, even as executive leadership has come to realize the importance of security investment, security still loses out to projects seen as revenue generating rather than as a cost center.

One solution: A trusted advisor

To better prepare for the modern data landscape, businesses should look to partner with a trusted advisor and move toward modern solutions. There is a trend away from simply using a vendor’s tools. Consulting is often more critical than the tool itself. The benefits of managed service providers take precedence over the services they manage. Why is this?

Well, one assumption we can make, based on the problems outlined earlier, is that working with a skilled advisor or service provider can reduce costs (whether time, money, resources or computing costs), provide long-term direction and help develop a strategy to derive value from existing and new solution investments that may have otherwise sat on the shelf. And that’s a good start for the future.