After the Deal Closes: Classes Realized in M&A Cybersecurity

October 29, 2023

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Jason Button leads the Cisco Safety and Belief Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) group. He was previously the director of IT at Duo Safety, an organization Cisco acquired in 2018, making him uniquely positioned to lend his experience to the M&A course of. This weblog is the continuation of a sequence targeted on M&A cybersecurity listed on the finish of this publish.

This newest weblog publish will revisit the subject of Shifting Left to Proper: Cybersecurity Practices and Outcomes in M&A Due Diligence and classes discovered from implementing Cisco’s M&A Cybersecurity Framework final 12 months.

Measurement Issues

On this 12 months alone, Cisco has made ten acquisition bulletins, starting from small, agile start-ups to well-established, publicly traded firms. The various dimension and complexity of the businesses we’re trying to purchase entail that we establish, assess, and regulate for threat in another way.

Our M&A Cybersecurity Framework has allowed us to scale and streamline our discovery and threat evaluation processes to raised align with the extent of safety threat a deal poses. Utilizing normal safety guardrails, tooling, methods data, and different automated processes to display and assess non-integrated dangers, we will draft a Discovery Danger Evaluation earlier, thereby releasing up groups to give attention to assessing extra complicated acquisitions and probably larger safety dangers.

Accelerating Integration

Proper-sizing your threat evaluation method has extra advantages, together with the power to establish areas of integration threat to speed up integration after the deal closes. An instance is the Valtix acquisition earlier this 12 months, the place we carried out an aggressive and thorough discovery investigation to shut the deal earlier than the tip of April. The driving issue was the chance to debut a vital product integration demonstration in early June at Cisco Reside, our flagship buyer occasion.

To fulfill this timeline, we would have liked to make sure that the safety threat was manageable and that we had stakeholder buy-in. We labored intently with cross-functional groups to establish and prioritize threat mitigation in order that we might meet our dedication. By having a sturdy framework in place, we had been in a position to speed up the mixing course of whereas enabling the Valtix workforce to be simpler and productive in a brief period of time.

One other lesson we’ve discovered is prioritizing visibility into the acquired infrastructure earlier within the course of. Deploying instruments like Wiz.io and JuniperOne helps educate us about new environments and permits us to establish dangers sooner. That is important when triaging and prioritizing efforts between the corporate being acquired and the enterprise it is going to be absorbed into. For the Armorblox and SamKnows acquisitions, we had been in a position to give attention to high-priority dangers and spend much less time spreading efforts throughout a number of work streams. Having a framework that helps us prioritize dangers is what’s most vital and finally makes for higher, safer merchandise.

Wanting Again to Energy Ahead

One other vital lesson discovered this 12 months was how one can apply the M&A framework to re-visit earlier acquisitions to evaluate and perceive threat. Going by means of this course of with out time constraints or diligence pressures allowed us to hone our investigative strategies and refine our practices. For instance, we labored with the Meraki workforce, a mature group that was acquired over ten years in the past and a big contributor to Cisco’s portfolio. We combed by means of a decade’s price of knowledge to tell how we might simplify and streamline key areas of our integration framework and enhance our general safety stance.

Securely Enabling Enterprise Development

One of many driving components for Cisco to accumulate firms is to establish and put money into new improvements that can enhance the safety and efficiency of our answer portfolio. The M&A Cybersecurity workforce works intently with Cisco’s Company Growth Integration workforce to evaluate and handle threat all through the invention, diligence, and integration course of.

The M&A Cybersecurity Framework has been a priceless instrument to make sure that enterprise, engineering, and operations leaders align and give attention to integration properly earlier than the deal closes. Operational alignment with IT, Safety, and different capabilities has helped floor vital points, akin to addressing workflows and person and buyer identities earlier than the mixing course of. We’ve additionally discovered that by elevating safety early within the M&A course of, we’re serving to the enterprise take away obstacles that might get in the way in which of enterprise objectives and obtain its worth drivers sooner, which results in accelerated enterprise progress.

Incomes and Sustaining Belief

Management professional Simon Sinek has regularly said, “A workforce isn’t a gaggle of people that work collectively.  A workforce is a gaggle of people that belief one another.”

Our M&A Cybersecurity Framework is a priceless instrument to assist securely allow the mergers and acquisition course of. Nevertheless, you may’t underestimate the private components wanted to make it a hit. Constructing belief throughout a workforce takes time and requires specializing in creating relationships, being empathetic, and demonstrating respect for an organization’s tradition.

The press launch asserting Cisco’s intention to accumulate Splunk cited one of many key worth propositions: “Unites two “Nice Locations to Work” with comparable values, robust cultures, and gifted groups.” The M&A course of is rather more than the mental property and know-how being acquired; the human capital and cultural strengths are sometimes probably the most priceless belongings.

Wanting again this 12 months, my colleague Mo Iqbal summed it up finest, “We will’t perceive the applied sciences till we perceive the individuals and tradition that enabled them to be so profitable.”

In case you are thinking about studying extra, please learn Greater than an Asset: The Individuals Facet of Mergers & Acquisitions.