Oct 2025

Rethink Cybersecurity: From Protection to Performance

Rethink Cybersecurity: From Protection to Performance

How a Strategic Approach to Security Can Protect, Enable, and Grow Your Business

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but for us, it’s more than just awareness. It’s about embedding cybersecurity into your business DNA.

When you view cybersecurity as a strategic investment rather than a cost, it becomes a driver of growth, trust, and resilience. Here’s how forward-thinking organizations are making that shift – and how your partnership with LAN helps lead the way.

Why Cybersecurity Is No Longer Just a Cost of Doing Business

Cybersecurity used to be treated like insurance – something you buy to reduce risk. But today, many leaders are reframing it as a business enabler that protects revenue, strengthens reputation, and even helps win new contracts.

High digital trust organizations report stronger customer loyalty, less brand damage, and more competitive advantage.

What that means in practice: better security helps you maintain uptime, safeguard client data, and avoid costly disruptions. All of these contribute directly to operational performance.

How Today’s Leaders Turn Cybersecurity into Business Value

One of the hardest parts of positioning cybersecurity as a strategy is quantifying returns. You might not see revenue directly from cybersecurity, but the value it protects is undeniable.

Some metrics to track:

  • Cost avoidance from prevented breaches
  • Reduction in downtime / faster recovery
  • Decrease in risk exposure (fewer vulnerabilities, fewer incidents)
  • Customer retention/reputation preservation
  • Cost efficiency via automation, consolidation, or managed services

The Gordon–Loeb model gives businesses a helpful starting point. It suggests that, on average, you shouldn’t spend more than about 37% of your potential loss on cybersecurity controls.

But real-world risks don’t always fit into neat formulas. That’s where stochastic models come in. These models use probability and simulation to explore a range of possible outcomes instead of relying on a single number. This approach gives leaders a clearer picture of how different investment levels could impact their organization in real-world scenarios.

By combining both approaches, leaders can make more informed, data-driven decisions about where to invest in cybersecurity, balancing protection, cost, and uncertainty in a way that suits their unique business needs.

Strategy in Practice: How Business Leaders Can Drive Value

To shift cybersecurity from IT’s problem to a boardroom discussion, leadership must engage. Recent research from multi-country studies confirms that leaders who actively support security make the difference between underinvestment and strategic alignment.

Actions to consider:

  • Include cyber risk in quarterly business reviews
  • Tie security KPIs to executive dashboards
  • Require vendor risk assessments for all partnerships
  • Embrace shared ownership: operations, legal, and HR all have roles in strategy
  • Use baseline frameworks (like NIST’s functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover) to structure programs

LAN can help ensure your security roadmap aligns with business priorities – not just technical best practices.

📌 Did You Know?

  • 68% of organizations with high digital trust maturity report improved customer trust/brand impact from their cybersecurity investments
  • 62% of organizations with low digital trust experience a reputation decline following security incidents.
  • In surveys, 98% of cybersecurity professionals say digital trust is important – yet only 12% of organizations have a dedicated role for it.
  • The average cost of a data breach globally is rising – making prevention and resilience more valuable every year

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