Grasping Corporate Mindsets
Do you consider business networking a drain on time or a vital investment?
We provide the opportunity to express your product in business terms. However you will need to do more than that. You will need to invest much time, effort and money into networking in areas where you are likely to encounter the corporates in a non-selling environment, linking and working with wider business and influential bodies such as the CBI, the Institute of Directors, Intellect, the Information Systems Security Association, and their various conferences. These all provide excellent opportunities to observe, listen and question.
Many of your conversations will be general, more business oriented than technical. There will at first be no obvious return – do not expect a transactional relationship. But you will unconsciously absorb the corporate mindset and be more alert to the few opportunities that may come your way – these often come from an area you least expect, from a chance meeting or conversation which could not have been predicted.
To be successful, innovators in IT security need to appreciate and network within the wider context into which their innovation will fit.
As an SME innovator you will have little time, but it is vital to spend time keeping up with the markets and customer thinking. This will enable more focussed messaging and marketing for their innovation, as well as potential leads. As with any developmental activity, the benefit of such groups and their activities is proportional to the time invested in them.
One very effective way of doing this is through various IT security related groups and organisations which aim to promote best practice, professionalism and effectiveness in the use and application of security. The sheer range and number of these can be daunting.
Awareness of the issues they face, what they are lobbying to do, and the challenges they face, will help you appreciate how best to promote your innovations, and better bridge the gap to the corporate user mindset. A good starting point is ISAF, the new Information Security Awareness Forum (www.theisaf.org). See our page listing key innovation, security and corporate groups (click here for list of organisations).
