Leveraging partnerships & technologies to achieve compliance, crypto-agility & cost-savings
OVERVIEW
- A “Multi-” Strategy for Digital Innovation: Increase Diversity, Escape Vendor Lock-In
- Navigating Opportunity & Complexity Through Long-term Partnerships
- The “Multi-” Challenge: Diversification without Fragmentation
Today, transformative innovation is a matter of diversification. The most ambitious manufacturers cherry-pick the best solutions available, resulting in deals with multiple vendors, clouds, markets, systems and technologies. While these organizations may be spoiled for choice, they also face the new challenge of securing and managing a mosaic of independent solutions…
To do this effectively, these teams must balance multiple activities simultaneously:
- Implement, troubleshoot & manage the security levels of diverse technologies and legacy systems
- Develop & maintain secure encryption & key management practices, including for third-party solutions, avoiding gaps & blind spots
- Remain compliant in an ever-changing environment
Organizations focused on running their core business hardly have time to become experts in all of those areas. In order to securely maintain a “multi-” approach that bundles a variety of leading market solutions, these organizations need to maintain footprint-wide oversite, adopt a global innovation strategy and unify their encryption key management system (KMS).
To do so, they increasingly turn to long-term innovation partners who specialize in tailoring digital solutions based on a “multi-” approach.
A “Multi-” Strategy for Digital Innovation: Increase Diversity, Escape Vendor Lock-In
More and more, regulatory bodies are recognizing the important of vendor diversity to an organization’s resilience. A lack of diversification leads to multiple risks:
- Concentration risk: A limited number of suppliers become overwhelmed during moments of high demand, disrupting supply chains
- Lack of digital sovereignty: Diminished control of one’s own data, software & hardware, which can result when too much power is given to one provider
- Vendor Lock-In: Dependency on a single vendor, even in the case of price hikes or diminished quality; in these instances, switching to another seems impractical or unrealistic
In finance, which often foreshadows the regulations to come in other sectors, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) identifies provider diversity as a critical element of resilience.
To better illustrate the benefits of diversification and innovation partnerships, take the example of financial investing, where we all understand how diversification maximizes opportunities and decreases risk. Or how partnering with a commission-based advisor limits a client’s possibilities, since the advisor is incentivized to sell products that promise a commission. Partnering with a fiduciary, on the other hand, gives clients access to all possibilities on the market, along with objective advise from a trusted professional.
Some innovation partners, such as Keys&More, and its state-owned parent company INCERT, function in this same way—as an expert partner that draws on both in-house tools and the best options on the market to produce customized solutions. Its deep expertise in cryptography and digital technologies lets Keys&More strategize, develop, curate and implement solutions that clients would be hard-pressed to identify and streamline on their own.
The “Multi-” Challenge: Diversification without Fragmentation
Of all the benefits of a multi-cloud strategy…simplicity is not among them. A multi-cloud strategy means more contracts, more systems and a higher learning curve.
Mesh services are leading the trend to help simplify service management in these scenarios. A service mesh adds a layer of infrastructure that simplifies service-to-service communication, optimizing flow of data between services and managing connections. But for large, complex organizations, this isn’t enough.
Having multiple clouds and vendors increases the complexity of cybersecurity, and key management in particular.
New regulations make manufacturers liable for the encryption practices across their footprint, including those of third-party collaborators and other OEMs. In addition to regulatory incentives, today’s IoT environments means that a risk anywhere in a supply chain or within a network, jeopardizes all other connected systems.
Unharmonized, disorganized key management is a serious regulatory, operational and financial risk. International manufacturers rely on unified key management systems to achieve consistent security across their applications, sites and teams. When done correctly, they achieve one demonstrable, compliant key management solution without gaps or inefficiencies.
Navigating Opportunity & Complexity Through Long-term Partnerships
To leverage digital innovation and lead their markets, manufacturers of today and tomorrow need a variety of encryption services:
- Key material inventory: A detailed process of identifying cryptographic material & encryption practices across every corner of an organization
- Risk assessment & analysis: Mapping out a complete picture of existing security gaps, including inconsistent or incomplete processes and systems
- Development of customized key management: A two-part approach that integrates (1) in-depth cryptographic expertise to develop in-house technologies & (2) decades of experience as an innovation partner to curate, package, streamline and implement vendor-diverse solutions
- Regulatory advising: Development of solutions & strategies that address industry & market-specific compliance requirements
SUMMARY
- A multi-cloud, multi-vendor approach is the best way to stay competitive & leverage the leading solutions available
- A unified KMS solution is the best way to maintain consistent security across your organization, no matter how complex & diverse
- A long-term digital innovation partnership is the best way to evolve & compete in a world of rapid technological & regulatory change
Keys&More draws on both in-house and third-party innovations and internal, state-level cryptographic expertise to put organizations on the right path, delivering efficiency, security and transformation.