Kaspersky’s IT Security Calculator reveals budgets lower than average in 45% of SMBs and 50% of enterprises

Data released by the Kaspersky IT Security Calculator shows that budgets at 45 percent of SMBs and 50 percent of enterprises are below the average spend at US$205,000 for small to medium, and $8 million for enterprise businesses. This is despite a Gartner report announcing cybersecurity spending is growing year-on-year with almost 9 percent growth this year.

The Kaspersky IT Security Calculator is a free web tool that allows IT security managers to view the average budget for cybersecurity in their region and industry, as well as to compare budgets within their organization. The tool is becoming increasingly important as it allows companies to understand their position in the market and also gives them the ability to compare their budget with competitors and improve planning.

Globally, IT security budgets are demonstrating positive dynamics with a number of analyst reports showing that budgets continue to grow year over year. 

Kaspersky’s own survey of almost five thousand organizations across the world confirms this trend with 70 percent of respondents showing they expect their IT security budget to increase in the next three years. However, statistics from usage of the Kaspersky IT Security Calculator in October 2018- 2019 revealed that some businesses are not keeping up with this trend, as their IT security spending is lower than average.

Overall, budgets for SMBs were reviewed more actively (46 percent) than for enterprises (38 percent) and very small companies (16 percent). For small and medium businesses, the budget issue proves to be complicated as it’s not only about finances but also the alignment of the budget planning process. Another challenge to consider is the demands on human resources to hire experts in relevant cybersecurity risks and the protection methods needed for different business services.

“Budget planning is a very important process for companies to carefully consider as the proper investments ensure a company is ready to meet current cybersecurity challenges and threats,” said Sergey Martsynkyan, head of B2B product marketing at Kaspersky. “Though it may be a complex task which demands a deep understanding of business needs towards cybersecurity, it is important to understand how to address them and how much it can cost. At Kaspersky, we do our best to give organizations insights to help them with this process. Along with the report on IT security economics we prepare annually, the IT Security Calculator gives a glance on average cybersecurity spending as well as specific threats and advice on protection measures.”

The Kaspersky IT Security Calculator website with threat statistics and recommended protection is available, and free to use.

Gartner expects 80 percent of marketers to drop their personalization efforts by 2025

Gartner expects that, by 2025, 80 percent of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon their efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both. In fact, 27 percent of marketers believe data is the key obstacle to personalization — revealing their weaknesses in data collection, integration and protection.

Marketers face other impediments to personalization success including the continuing decline in consumer trust, increased scrutiny by regulators and tracking barriers erected by tech companies. While personalization comprises 14 percent of the marketing budget, more than one in four marketing leaders cite technology as a major hurdle to personalization.

Gartner has a number of recommendations for marketing leaders evaluating their personalization efforts, including leveraging a pilot or proof of concept (POC) with a vendor before investing in a personalization tool, while returning to the basics and test tailored recommendations at the segment level to avoid unnecessary or premature investment in a personalization engine. It also helps grow personalization efforts from a set of tactics or tools to a capability by focusing on strategic planning, use case development and consent management as part of a personalization roadmap.

The effort also helps collaborate with cross-functional teams to align personalization efforts and increase momentum. Sharing control of personalization efforts can lead to shared insight and expand collective impact and ROI.

Other Gartner predictions to help marketers adjust to rapidly evolving customer behaviors and plan accordingly include expectations that by 2023, chief marketing officer (CMO) budget allocation on influencer marketing will decrease by a third as consumers continue to lose trust in brands and entities they don’t personally know; by 2024, artificial intelligence identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online advertisements viewed; by 2022, 25 percent of marketing departments will have a dedicated behavioral scientist or ethnographer as part of their full-time staff; and in 2023, one-third of all brand public relations disasters will result from data ethics failures.

“Personal data has long been the fuel that fires marketing at every stage of the customer journey, and the drive to find new forms of fuel and devise new ways to leverage them seems to be boundless,” said Charles Golvin, senior director analyst in the Gartner for Marketers practice. “However, this quest has failed to meet marketers’ ambitions and, in some cases, has backfired, as consumers both directly and indirectly reject brands’ overtures.”

New Cohesity Partner Program enables partners to monetize opportunities in expanding data management segment

Cohesity announced advancements in its channel partner program to meet the growing opportunities for partners and customers globally. Cohesity is investing in its partner program so it can keep pace with the rapid market acceptance of Cohesity data management solutions.

Building on last year’s initial program, the enhanced program focuses on simplicity and transparency, with generous bonuses for bringing in new customers, streamlined processes for incentives and market development fund (MDF) management, as well as the ability to clearly differentiate partner capabilities.

The enriched Cohesity partner program is divided into three tiers that provide clear direction to partners on how they can grow their business with Cohesity. The tiered program is also designed to make it easy for Cohesity customers to identify knowledgeable and experienced channel partners that have a proven record of success. 

The partner tiers include Premier Partner top tier for “premier partners” to work directly with Cohesity executives on joint business planning and custom growth programs. Premier Partners can provide feedback through several vehicles, including the Partner Advisory Council. To reach the premier partner tier, partners must meet a set of requirements and complete training accreditations.

The next tier consists of Preferred Partner. Channel partners that complete specific trainings are recognized as “preferred partners” with access to Cohesity partner teams, MDFs for marketing and enablement, along with instructor-led training courses and not-for-resale (NFR) software for customer demos and education.

The last tier is made up of Associate Partner: The starting “associate partner” tier provides access to the Cohesity Partner Portal where resellers across the globe can obtain pre-built marketing campaign kits, access sales tools, and gain access to web-based sales and enablement training.

RoboMQ announces availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central API integration on Connect iPaaS platform

RoboMQ announces general availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Business Central API connectors on its Connect iPaaS platform. This collaboration makes Connect iPaaS a very useful tool for integration and business process automation to the users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides CRM and ERP capabilities to businesses providing a complete suite of products covering sales, marketing, service, operations, finance, commerce, and HR. Business Central provides the same capabilities to the small and medium businesses (SMB) to run their business operations on this comprehensive solution. 

RoboMQ is a Message Queue as Service platform hosted on cloud and also available as an Enterprise hosting option. This Software as a Service platform is an integrated message queue hub, analytics engine, management console, dashboard and monitoring & alerts; all managed and hosted in a secure, reliable and redundant infrastructure.

Businesses often use processes that are accomplished by multiple systems and applications in addition to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central. Connect iPaaS fills the gap by offering data and API connectors to several SaaS, cloud, and enterprise applications. 

Some of the widely used applications on Connect iPaaS are Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, SmartSheet, Workday, Magento, Nexmo, Coupa, Office 365, SharePoint, PagerDuty, QuickBooks, Slack, Twilio, analytics and databases, and more. 

With Connect iPaaS users can build complex value-creating business workflows using the data and API from many of these systems. Common use cases include supply chain automation, sales automation, employee on-boarding, and revenue enablement and reconciliation.

With its modern, intuitive, no-code user experience (UX), Connect iPaaS provides the line of business users and citizen integrators a platform to build business processes by integrating SaaS, cloud, on-premise and IoT applications. Common application integration workflows that solve everyday challenges faced by enterprises can be deployed in a matter of minutes using a simple drag-and-drop interface.