Meet Stephen Hill, Chief Technology Officer at CommuniCloud
Why have you chosen to work at CommuniCloud?
I have built a career working within the biggest Telco and Systems integrator community over the past 15 years working on Large Enterprise and Government agencies. At their very best, they are cumbersome beasts that are usually out of touch with their customer’s requirements. They build offerings that suit their needs and do not necessarily encompass customer requirements. Moving to CommuniCloud has allowed me to take my experience from this world and re-connect with businesses, building solutions that meet their changing needs and providing high touch customer experience.
Usually, at what moment do businesses look for Cyber Security solutions?
That usually depends on the maturity of the business in question. Some businesses are well down the path, have policies, processes, and assets all mapped and are well into their security journey. Unfortunately, some start booking meetings once they have had a breach or incident, and unfortunately, this is all too common.
Over the past 12-24 months we are seeing a shift in the Australian small to mid-market sector, where security is fast becoming a key priority for business leaders. The good news is that they understand what they know and don’t know. A lot of businesses in this scenario are reaching out understanding that their posture has not been the greatest in the past but understand that it needs to change but need help with specifically where to start making that change.
What are the biggest challenges faced by most of your clients?
Without a doubt, the biggest challenges we are seeing across the board are resources and budget. Resources in a sense that they usually have IT staff that have been given the additional responsibility of security on top of their already challenging role but without any additional headcount.
The second is the allocation of budget. At the beginning of the pandemic, as Australian Businesses were forced to move out of the office or endure extended shutdowns, Budgets were re-allocated primarily to business enablement for a workforce migrating to home working or just cut to account for loss of productivity and sales.
Again this seems to be changing in the Australian market. As businesses are preparing to go back into the office and borders are opening, there has also been a change in discussion from communication and collaboration technologies to security posture, especially to fill gaps that were uncovered during BCP with a remote workforce and extended shut down periods. Both of these have driven most customer discussions to SOC as a Service offering in order to bolster existing teams without heavy capital investment in technology and operational investment in resources.
What is the greatest piece of advice you can give to clients around Cyber Security?
I get asked this question a lot; however, each business is unique, making their priorities and requirements unique, so my biggest advice is to lean on security partners. Even if it’s just conversational to understand what other organisations are doing in your industry or geography, your partners are talking to other businesses all day every day and can offer unique advice that is hard to gain outside of that industry.
Want to learn more about our Cyber Security Solutions and how your business will benefit from it?
We pride ourselves on protecting and becoming an extension of your team. We don’t just flag alerts, we consult, recommend and can remediate on request. With a proven track record. We provide security solutions that work and never sleep to keep you ahead of the latest threats. We’re with you every step of the way.
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