During my Gartner years, I wrote about technology consolidation as primarily a vendor market phenomenon. This had implications for investors and vendor ownership but was of little value for the consumers of the vendors’ tools. The users were the victims of vendor consolidation, as they never could tell which tool was about to become an orphan – that is, unsupported after its creator exited the business, either by acquisition (90% of the time) or an IPO (10% of the time).
Today’s IT environments are rife with tools of many kinds. In information security, there are about 3,000 companies providing capabilities in dozens of information security disciplines. Most of these will exit the business in a year or two – either they will fail, as startups do, because of inadequate funding or market miscues, or a larger firm will acquire them – perpetuating the myth that larger firms are so focused on maintaining their business that they cannot innovate.
But there is good news for the companies that own so many tools. Studies have consistently shown that most organizations use about 30% of the capabilities of the tools they own. That’s not because of ignorance or poor planning but simply because the vendors continue to add functions as they grow. The product that your organization bought three years ago now has two or three times the capabilities it did then.
As a user of IT tools, you have a golden opportunity to consolidate your vendor portfolio by eliminating redundant capabilities and by resolving open business needs by looking again at the capabilities of the vendor products you have already installed. Not only have you trained your people to use and maintain them, but you have integrated them into your operational procedures. Rather than discard that ongoing investment, leverage it.
In the case of information security, the typical 500 to 5,000-employee company has about 50 information security tools deployed from dozens of vendors. By reviewing the current offerings your incumbent vendors now have, you can reduce the number of vendors, simplify your SOC and help desk, and leverage your training investment.
Such an initiative can save money from the IT budget as well – and that will give the organization disproportionately greater funding for new initiatives. Most organization spend about half their IT budget on maintenance, leaving half of the money available for new features and capabilities. For every dollar saved on the maintenance side, the benefit to the investment side has double the impact.
Consider consolidating your vendor portfolio. Begin by surveying your current and planned product portfolio. Learn from your vendors which capabilities they have added since you first procured their tool. If the vendor can provide you with some form of trustworthy roadmap, that may help as well.
Analyze your portfolio for current and potential overlap and implement a disengagement strategy to increase your team’s productivity, save you money, and reduce complexity.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below or @wjmalik@noc.social
