Managed and Professional Security Services Market in the Americas, Forecast to 2024

The volume, sophistication, and diversity of cyber threats are an unrelenting problem for companies’ internal information security teams. Outsourcing to manage and secure IT environments has become a cost-effective option for those with outdated or otherwise inadequate cybersecurity practices. Competition and pricing pressure will intensify over the forecast period, compelling providers to increase their investments in technological innovation and sales and marketing, and to pursue strategic acquisitions. The goal is to offer a superior value proposition that demonstrates a convincing return on investment for clients. Although protection and prevention service lines bring in the majority of managed security service revenue, detection and response is growing at a faster pace. Enterprises have determined that protection and prevention can reduce the number of security breaches but not guarantee elimination as alerts and incidents increase, and that internal capabilities are insufficient to expeditiously and accurately detect, triage, and respond to genuine compromises. In their effort to thwart cyber attacks, IT security personnel remain at an inherent disadvantage: as they protect business assets and processes, they also must ensure that they do not get in the way of legitimate operations. Achieving both objectives is rarely possible, especially in a highly competitive and digitally connected business environment. Sacrifices in cyber defenses and judgment calls on acceptable risk are inevitable. Leveraging their experience and expertise in utilizing top security technologies and armed with perspectives on cyber adversaries’ techniques, tactics, and procedures, security service providers make a compelling argument that they can lessen their clients’ exposure and mitigate the advances of cyber adversaries. Businesses need a partner that is delivering effective security services at scale for many clients across multiple attack vectors. Security is essential for business today. As employees use more technology to be more productive, advanced detection and response services are a must. Digital transformation projects and operational changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will boost the demand for security. The future of managed security services will be analytics. Providers will choose from among several approaches: building analytics systems from scratch; investing in analytics platforms; doubling down on incumbent security information and event management platforms; integrating with a third party’s capabilities to supplement in-house capabilities; or (most likely) leveraging a combination of all of these. Author: Mauricio Chede