Risk-Informed Decision-Making: What’s Your RIDM IT Loss Tolerance?

How long can your business go without its information technology being operational?

Answering this question is an easy way to judge your business’ risk tolerance for loss of IT.

So, once you’ve estimated your business’ tolerance for a loss of IT, you can begin to plan and implement risk-informed decision-making (RIDM) processes based on an analysis of the risks your business faces.

Risk Assessment Required

The first action is a thorough, rigorous risk assessment of your organization’s IT infrastructure. You don’t know how to prioritize your investments if you don’t know where your current systems stand. If you don’t assess your risks, you can’t spend your IT dollars wisely.

itSynergy uses a proprietary, risk-informed decision-making model that allows you, as a business leader, to make the proper IT decisions and investments, informed by a rigorous risk assessment, that focuses on business tolerance versus cost of mitigation. Just like an insurance assessment, where you decide if and how much you want to invest in protection, IT risk assessment follows the same decision-making strategy.

We start with a predefined list of roughly 50 risks that most businesses face. The list covers physical environment and software and hardware assessments. Most small- to medium-sized businesses only need to assess 25-30 of these areas, but we cover them all for our clients to keep them among the most secured.

We also develop a list of risks particular to your industry and organization. For example, the financial and other regulated industries require industry-specific risk assessments such as FINRA, HIPAA, PCI and others. Other companies, especially in Arizona, are required to implement information security solutions if they hold more than a few pieces of personal information.

Determining the IT Risk List

The RIDM assessment gives us a tactical list of the most critical IT risks. We review this with you, and, ultimately, you decide on how much risk your business can afford to mitigate.

We begin working down the list of any vulnerabilities in your organization’s IT – from the most severe to the miniscule.

This, of course, is part of an ongoing process. Unless there are no risks to your business’ IT (which is highly unlikely), you will likely be continuously updating your list of vulnerabilities and working on filling those gaps.

Technology Strategy Helps You Reach Your Business Goals

Your technology strategy is determined by discussing your business goals and aligning technology to support those goals. Once we determine your IT risk tolerance and know your business goals, we can then start planning your technology strategy.

Planning technology strategy includes cost considerations, user acceptance and adoption, and analyzing trending data that may impact your business in the next few years.

At itSynergy, our process includes an annual technology strategic plan which is a companion document to your business plan. The technology strategic plan outlines three to five strategic IT goals to focus on for the year.

itSynergy Will Assess Your IT Risk and Design a Technology Plan

At itSynergy, we use our proprietary risk assessment model to rigorously examine your systems and pinpoint vulnerabilities. We help you identify those risks most severe and dangerous to your organization and help you plan and implement solutions to fill the gaps. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a minor tweak that takes seconds to implement. Other times, it’s a more significant project. No matter what IT challenges your business is facing, we can help you protect and streamline your organization.

It’s important you partner with an IT provider who has knowledge and experience in your industry and can ensure your business is meeting all requirements of applicable Arizona data breach and cybersecurity laws.

If you’d like to experience the expert IT strategy, service and support other Arizona businesses receive from itSynergy, get in touch with us at 602-297-2400 or online.