In my last blog Improving the Position of the CISO, I introduced the new research I’ve done on extending the classic “Confidentiality-Integrity-Availability” (C-I-A) frame for security analysis, to cover all the other qualities of enterprise information assets. The idea is to build a comprehensive account of what it is that makes information valuable in the context of the business, leveraging the traditional tools and skills of the CISO. After all, security professionals are particularly good at looking at context. Instead of restricting themselves to defending information assets against harm, CISOs can be helping to enhance those assets by building up their other competitive attributes.
Let’s look at some examples of how this would work, in some classic Big Data applications in retail and hospitality.
Companies in these industries have long been amassing detailed customer databases under the auspices of loyalty programs. Supermarkets have logged our every purchase for many years, so they can for instance put together new deals on our favorite items, from our preferred brands, or from competitors trying to get us to switch brands. Likewise, hotels track when we stay and what we do, so they can personalise our experience, tailor new packages for us, and try to cross-sell services they predict we’ll find attractive. Behind the scenes, the data is also used for operations to plan demand, fine tune their logistics and so on.
Big Data techniques amplify the value of information assets enormously, but they can take us into complicated territory. Consider for example the potential for loyalty information to be parlayed into insurance and other financial services products. Supermarkets find they now have access to a range of significant indicators of health & lifestyle risk factors which are hugely valuable in insurance calculations … if only the data is permitted to be re-purposed like that.
The question is, what is it about the customer database of a given store or hotel that gives it an edge over its competitors? There many more attributes to think creatively about beyond C-I-A!
For more detail, my new report, “Strategic Opportunities for the CISO”, is available now.