{"id":10270,"date":"2026-08-25T12:03:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cwsisecurity.com\/?p=10270"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:03:26","slug":"youre-not-just-overpaying-for-security-you-may-be-underusing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cwsisecurity.com\/fr\/youre-not-just-overpaying-for-security-you-may-be-underusing-it\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re\u202fnot just overpaying for security. You may be underusing it\u202f\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Mark Mitchell, CTO at CWSI <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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The latest Forrester Total Economic Impact\u2122 study, commissioned by Microsoft, reinforces a trend I’ve seen across the industry for some time: organisations that simplify their security ecosystem are often better positioned to improve both resilience and return on investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The headline figures are compelling. The composite organisation in the study achieved a 124% return on investment, recovered its costs in less than six months, and reduced technology expenditure over a three-year period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the numbers aren’t the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What stood out was the approach. These organisations didn’t pursue consolidation for consolidation’s sake. They first gained a clear understanding of the security capabilities they already had, identified where products overlapped, and only retired existing technologies once equivalent capabilities had been successfully implemented and validated. That’s a fundamentally different mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too often, security conversations focus on what organisations need to buy next. In reality, many aren’t lacking security tools, they’re lacking the visibility, time and operational capacity to extract full value from the investments they’ve already made. Consolidation, when approached strategically, isn’t about reducing the number of vendors. It’s about creating a security architecture that’s easier to manage, more effective to operate, and better equipped to respond to an increasingly complex threat landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Complexity is rarely a strategy<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Few organisations set out to create a complex security environment. More often, complexity is the by-product of growth. A new threat demands a specialist solution. A business acquisition introduces another technology stack. Different teams make decisions to solve immediate challenges. Procurement cycles don’t align. Over time, a security estate evolves into a collection of capable tools that were never designed to work as a cohesive whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In isolation, each decision makes sense. Collectively, they can create an environment that’s harder to manage, more difficult to operate and increasingly challenging to optimise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s why consolidation shouldn’t be viewed as a cost-cutting exercise. It’s an opportunity to step back and ask a more strategic question:\u202fAre we getting the full value from the security capabilities we’ve already invested in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a conversation we have regularly with organisations. It’s not uncommon to find third-party tools delivering capabilities that already exist within their Microsoft licensing. In some cases, those specialist products remain the right choice because they provide differentiated functionality or meet specific operational requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just as often, overlapping tools remain in place simply because Microsoft’s native capabilities have never been fully implemented, configured or operationalised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Capability doesn\u2019t equal protection<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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One of the biggest misconceptions in cybersecurity is that owning a capability is the same as benefiting from it. It isn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it’s part of Microsoft Security or any other platform, a security control only delivers value when it’s properly configured, integrated into the wider environment and embedded into day-to-day operations. If teams don’t trust it, understand it or actively use it, its potential remains largely unrealised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s why I think the term\u202flicence optimisation\u202fundersells what’s really at stake. This isn’t simply an exercise in reducing software costs or rationalising vendors. It’s about ensuring the security capabilities you’ve already invested in are delivering the outcomes they were intended to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost savings that often follow are valuable, but they’re rarely the primary objective. The greater benefit is a security environment that’s simpler to operate, easier to manage and more resilient because teams have confidence in the controls they’re relying on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Achieving that doesn’t happen overnight. It requires careful planning, rigorous testing and the discipline to validate replacement capabilities before legacy tools are retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Better questions lead to better decisions <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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One of the most valuable aspects of the Forrester study isn’t the financial modelling, it’s the validation of a conversation many security leaders are already having: How do we build a security environment that’s both effective and sustainable? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer isn’t simply to consolidate for the sake of reducing vendors, nor is it to assume every specialist tool should be replaced by a native capability. The right strategy depends on understanding your own environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That starts with asking better questions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n