In 1981, the first reported cybercrime involved a hacker manipulating a major telephone carrier’s system to allow free calls. While this may seem quaint today, the cyber threat landscape has evolved dramatically. Furthermore, the World Economic Forum has recently identified cybercrime and cyber insecurity as among the most severe global risks organizations are facing currently.
As cybercrime escalates, and threat actors launch more sophisticated, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven attacks, organizations must urgently enhance security around digital and enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformations. That’s why now — more than ever — cybersecurity can’t be treated as a bolt-on. It must be embedded into the heart of digital transformation and treated as an enabler for the organization.
Forward-thinking digital leaders globally are championing the migration to cloud-hosted environments, such as SAP CloudERP, public and private. SAP CloudERP is an integrated enterprise resource planning system that provides real-time data processing and advanced analytics and manages end-to-end business functions from finance to supply chain management.
The most effective solution is to ensure the CISO has a seat at the table. These digital transformations are complex, and each add-on or built-in feature, whether for environments such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud (Private Edition) or other hosting solutions, demands specialized insights and expertise to address the challenges effectively.
Involving the CISO early offers a significant advantage by eliminating a potential obstacle. The CISO’s primary responsibility is to identify organizational risks and assess their acceptability for the entire organization. By including the CISO during transformative decision points and maintaining their involvement throughout the process, the CISO will gain the necessary insights to enable the program, thereby reducing the likelihood of costly delays.
One such key decision point is whether the organization, and the business, should move forward with a brownfield transformation approach, or leverage a new greenfield environment. While every organization is different in how they choose their future journey with an enterprise resource planning (ERP), cybersecurity must be elevated to a business transformation priority, and leaders need to adopt a more proactive stance toward integrating cyber leadership in their transformation journeys far earlier. Here’s how: