Technology Alliance Outlook for 2023 and Beyond | BeyondTrust

‘Tis the season for being merry—and of course for all the end-of-year recaps and projections for next year. I wanted to jump on this bandwagon, or sleigh, to keep holiday metaphor intact, and provide some thoughts and projections around technology alliance and ecosystem trends for 23 and beyond.

As we have seen over this past year and projected for next year, ransomware and security threats will continue to be on the rise. According to estimates from Statista’s Cybersecurity Outlook, the global cost of cybercrime is expected to surge in the next five years, rising from $8.44 trillion in 2022 to $23.84 trillion by 2027. That will certainly put the Grinch in your stocking! Companies also continue to struggle with numerous identity-related issues due to misconfigurations and incomplete Zero trust implementations. In a recent study by BeyondTrust and Dimensional Data, we found that 93% of identity issues stem from integration problems and inappropriate access creating security risks. Now, Zero trust is a journey rather than a destination, but with Zero trust taking the security spotlight over the last couple years, it’s so surprising that so few companies reported they were fully deployed. The research investigated the current adoption level of Zero trust in the market and determined that only 24% of companies, by their own account, have their zero trust solution fully deployed.

This is why technology partnerships, integrations, and an overall ecosystem approach is so vital to an organization’s security and IT Infrastructure needs, and for its strategy into next year and beyond.

So here are my top 5 key technology alliance ecosystem trends and predictions that organizations will need to be focused on and planning for in the next year and beyond.

1. An ecosystem model is now more important than ever

The last 18 months certainly have been a challenging time for most organizations. Supply chain issues, remote employees, and increased reliance on cloud resources are just a few of the obstacles they’ve had to try to hurtle. Our BeyondTrust and Dimensional Data research study will be available in the new year, but as a sneak peak, we found that nearly all (93%) of those surveyed revealed they had experienced identity-related incidents in the last 18 months, with the largest number of issues stemming from integration problems (54%).

Implementing a zero trust model truly needs to be a team sport. It’s not about a single product or solution, but about multiple solutions all working together in concert, providing the necessary data, information, and actionable results to address these security threats. Achieving a zero trust approach must include a cross-section of ecosystem partners, including technology alliances, MSPs, GSIs, and integration partners—and they all need to be aligned, integrated, and future proofed.

We also continue to see the need for an integrated identity centric approach to security, which requires the full scope of the identity umbrella, including access management, privileged access security, and identity governance. Identity-based access and control must be aligned with the effectiveness of a zero trust security model.

2. Native integrations will be key to solution requirements and purchases

In that same study, nearly all (92%) of companies indicated they were using multiple vendors and solutions for their zero trust strategy, with most using four or more solutions. 70% rely on custom coding for integration, often delivered by costly professional services. Integrations are a critical component of any zero trust model and approach. When solutions aren’t fully integrated, this opens an organization up to potential gaps and blind spots. These integrations are no longer a nice to have but a must have. This comes up in just about every customer conversation I have, as does the requirement for these solutions to be natively integrated. This, of course, reduces the potential for threats, but it also cuts back on additional development, which requires dev resources and lots more time to deploy and maintain.

And these integrations must be native integrations to support longevity, scalability, and future proofing, meaning that they need to be built into the products rather than having them developed after the fact, which can be costly, time consuming, and will always break at some point during the product lifecycles. This is why our BeyondTrust Technology Alliance ecosystem is such an important aspect of our overall company and product strategy.

3. Marketplaces will continue to grow in importance for buyers and sellers

The Marketplace term is used in lots of ways. It can be a transactable marketplace, such as with AWS, Microsoft Azure, or ServiceNow, or it can be more informational, including a partner finder that shows which partners a company may integrate with for which products and versions. The BeyondTrust Integration Partner Finder is a good example of this. Today, everyone acknowledges that ecosystems and Marketplaces are the future, and they need to figure out how to be part of this future. We have only just begun to see how selling and buying will evolve as ecosystems and Marketplaces blend together, and this will continue for years to come.

According to the recent Tackle.IO Cloud Marketplace report, cloud Marketplaces continue to grow year over year. Bessemer Venture Partners noted that, in 2021, Marketplace transactions grew an estimated 70% to $4 billion, which is 3x faster growth than the public cloud at large.

This isn’t a surprise when you look at all of the benefits that these marketplaces provide to organizations, including consolidation and ease of purchasing, flexible payments, and enterprise discounts. We are seeing huge interest in this area from our customers, and our goal is to make it as easy as possible to be where our customers want to purchase.

4. Automation and increased efficiency will be make-or-break for suppliers

As the economy uncertainly continues, organizations are looking for increased efficiencies, greater levels of ROI, and quick time to value. Leveraging and getting the most of out of their current solutions is more important than ever. To compound this, we are also dealing with more information and data than ever before, so organizations need to figure out how to leverage and utilize this information to help secure their environments instead of hindering them with just more data and decision making.

This is why BeyondTrust and Ping Identity are working together on their new DaVinci’s no-code identity orchestration. It will provide a low code interface that makes workflow design simpler to benefit mutual customers on strengthening their security footprint across identity, access, and privileges.

By leveraging these types of integrations, organizations can unlock new use cases and features, extending their solutions even further by creating efficient automation, workflows, and process flows.

5. Constricting compliance requirements make integration even more critical

New laws and regulations will continue to be passed, which means organizations require solutions that work even more efficiently and mesh even more seamlessly to meet these requirements. With more stringent government guidelines and regulations, companies need to be prepared for stricter enforcement of data security practices if they don’t take proactive steps now. A key to this is an integrated solutions approach that provides streamlined processes, delivers greater data visibility, increases auditability, and improves reporting, all to ensure compliance.

The new zero trust Executive Order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity to “identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond” to the increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten both public and private sectors speaks to delivering such an approach. I believe that we will start to see even more of these government regulations going forward, as well as more internal stringent corporate policies to get a handle on this growing issue.

Along these same lines, we will also see a rise in Cyber Insurance, both new policies as well as renewals. Cyber insurance providers are requiring organizations deploy multiple solutions to build a robust protected network security.

The path forward – navigating incoming technology alliance trends

So, in conclusion, I would say that we are going to have another exciting year ahead of us, although it won’t be without its challenges and unknowns. Technology partnerships and integrations are going to play a vital role in an organization’s ability to remain resilient, and building an ecosystem approach will give organizations the effective security and IT Infrastructure postures they need to succeed.

For more information about the future of technology alliances, including tips on how to build an effective ecosystem, visit our website at www.beyondtrust.com/partners/technology-partners.