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Leftover Security Budget: Use it or lose it!

October 10, 2007 by Stacy Shelley

Filed under General category.

Between figuring out next year’s budget and comparing YTD expenditures with this year’s budget, Q4 is always an interesting time for security and IT managers. For the lucky ones who have found themselves with extra money that needs spending before the end of the year (sandbaggers!), it can be surprisingly difficult to find something worthwhile to spend it on. I know, I know. I can’t imagine how anyone would deal with such misfortune. But seriously, some managers do have problems choosing end-of-year purchases and wind up either spending their extra budget on shelfware or not spending it at all – only to end up with a leaner budget for next year.

Spending excess budget is not as easy as it sounds. Most security managers have learned the hard way to cherry-pick purchases that they can roll out quickly without taking on a lot of new overhead. If the budget is already planned for next year, they are also wary of making purchases that will need ongoing support or those that would “marry” them to projects that aren’t in next year’s budget.

Lately, we’ve been seeing more companies use their extra budget for professional services, such as assessment and audit preparation services to get a jump on next year. Companies are also using professional services to offload some tasks they may do internally, like auditing webapps for vulnerabilities, to give their staff a little more breathing room during the holidays or to make up for unplanned absences. If well-scoped, professional services can provide great bang for your buck in a short amount of time without much overhead.

Having said all that, here is a bit of advice that goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway): If spending your leftover budget is the strongest reason you can think of for buying something, find something else to spend the money on.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 9:31 am.

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