THE GLOBAL FUTURIST

Monday, February 23, 2015

Cyber Security Assessments And Insurance - The Global Futurist - Douglas E. Castle

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

The incidence and scale of hacking (and other types of data security breaching) activity, multiplied by its accelerating level of sophistication has individuals and businesses in an ever-increasing state of fear.

With our dangerous growing dependency on the electronic storage and transmittal of information, as well as with the growing percentage of commerce and banking transacted online and via mobile devices, there is a rapidly rising risk of significant financial and personal (real, physical) loss. Of course, this increasing risk, both actual and perceived, will translate to increasing opportunity for certain entrepreneurs, enterprises and visionary investors.

I would suggest that two business-to-business industry sectors which will ripen to full bloom during the next two to three years [although I do not provide financial or investment advice to any reader/s under any circumstances] will be: 1) cyber security assessments, evaluations and standardized ratings*; and 2) insurance (i.e., insurance products and policy providers) against losses due to incidents involving hacking or other types of data security breaches.
____
* These standardized security ratings could be some variation on the theme of ISO (the International Organization For Standardization) 27001, or promulgated by some other body, either existing or to be created.
____

Start scanning and scouring the news and marketplaces for companies which are contemplating significant investments or forays into either one or both of the above industry sectors, and you will be looking at the future, albeit today.

Prepare yourself, your systems, your routines and your portfolio accordingly.

Douglas E. Castle for The Global Futurist Blog

---------------

Labels, Tags, Categories, Keywords And Search Terms For This Article:
cyber security, data integrity, hacking, insurance, risk management, The Global Futurist Blog, cyber threats, Douglas E. Castle, encryption, coding, codes, standardized security ratings, investments, dangerous dependencies, virtual transactions, online commerce, threats, threat assessment, credit and financial protection, ISO, International Organization For Standardization, ISO 27001

THE GLOBAL FUTURIST – Douglas E Castle

http://theglobalfuturist.blogspot.com

Discovering and following significant trends across an extensive range of domestic and international consumer, business, demographic, cultural, economic, political, technological and other key areas of influence and impact on life and business; predicting future change, preparing for it and profiting from it.

Key Terms: business, forecasting, trends, future, prediction, disruption, displacement, innovation, complexity theory, economic waves and cycles, projections, planning

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Bigger Is Not Always Better - Why Bigger Organizations Are Increasingly Risk-Averse And May Be Losing Ground.

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

The lines are drawn, and will be etched more deeply in the sand between the larger, well-established and cash flow positive (even if this cash flow comes from subsidies or debt) conglomerated industrial and financial juggernauts and the entrepreneurial and emerging enterprises in terms of 1) aversion to risk or change, and 2) early adopters of technological and ideological "mini-paradigm" shifts. In a futurescape of continued disruption, business failures and government impotence, smaller and smarter are the winning attributes

During the next 18 to 30 months, the divide between the corporate establishment and the innovative and aggressive entrepreneurial constituents of the supply side [ both in the services sector and in the manufacturing and production sectors] of the world's national economies will widen. With the advent of crowdfunding and other alternative capitalization mechanisms, and with a public wanting to see a disruptive change in the way the wasteful and abusive (perceptually) entrenched oligopolies and monopolies, the larger, publicly-traded institutions run by avaricious boards of directors accustomed to a wealth-padded lifestyle, most all significant advances will be made by the smaller, less risk averse firms.

Big firms with ticker symbols are due to flounder quite a bit, regardless of market share and preferential governmental treatment due to several key factors

This is a function of a number of factors, not the least of which is a basic business law (as yet to be endorsed by the risk management and trend-watching pundits and the companies which employ them -

1) Castle's Second Law Of Practical Risk Management: Entrepreneurs, Strategic Planners and Project Managers, as well as their affiliated experts and teams should note that in many cases, the same given risk factors weigh much more heavily (either in fact or perceptually) against the benefit factors in a larger, more 'multi-cellular' organization than in its smaller, less-evolved counterpart.

2) Inertia and subsidies foster perpetuation of existing policies and even encourage them. Governmental agencies, central banks and barriers to the cost of entry by potential competition have encouraged their boards to continue what they have been doing. The U.S. government, for example, have kept some major enterprises alive in a money-printing, taxpayer-squeezing "Jurassic Park." These dinosaur companies still roam the earth because they have not been hit by a meteor shower of disruption and an interruption in their allowances;

3) Smaller enterprises can pivot while their larger, older counterparts are more like closed-minded, over-confident Goliaths. These companies would be felled by a single round from a slingshot fired by a crowdfunded or incubated "David." Muscularity and size do not necessarily triumph over speed and agility. Smaller firms are more receptive to new ideas, keeping them agile.

4) Traditional funding sources are drying up for these big behemoths as the tax base in industrialized nations begins to disintegrate due to a combination of unemployment and brain drain, while non-bank alternatives, international co-ventures, and public capital (in small increments and donations) are helping the smaller, harder-working enterprises to bring their products and services to market;

5) Many of these larger firms will either wage war against each other, or be bought out as bargains by Asian entrepreneurs and investment groups while the emerging enterprises are beginning to take flight. And more and more launches of smaller companies will take flight with the help of incremental, non-institutional investments by the general public through non-trade-able financings. Smaller private companies can take actions without the fear that a small failure, or some non-profitable time consumed in an exercise of trial and error will hurt their stock value. They are more interested in revenue growth and profit margins than in what the financial analysts and rating services have to say.

The populaces of the respective industrialized nations want to see more jobs, and they are starting to become increasingly excited about slaying the Goliaths and in financing David's techno slingshot or magic bullet.

As capital access to the entrepreneurial and emerging enterprise sector becomes increasingly liberalized, the only way that the juggernauts of the sad past will be able to get ahead will be through the rapid acquisition of these smaller companies and the separation of these industrious engines of employment from the corporate culture of the dinosaurs -- particularly the ones who are in a waiting pattern, or are standing in a plush version of a government assistance breadline with velvet ropes to keep these creatures from pushing each other out of the line.

The only interesting stock plays remaining for listed firms are the ones about to receive government aid, pricey consulting or military contracts, or the ones which are widely traded publicly but have seen the wisdom of an acquisition binge. It held Bill Gates' organization together for quite some time, now, didn't it?

Douglas E. Castle for The Global Futurist Blog and for The Internationalist Page Blog