| | March - 201919After digging in to a passwordless future and supply chain security in previous installments of my VC Diaries, this episode explores the paradigm shift in the go-to-market of security solutions. Selling security has been around for decades, but the sales model has remained relatively unchanged with its sole focus on the CISO. But today, we see an emerging bottoms-up sales model that focuses on constituents outside the security org, leading to better product adoption and collaboration between security and other teams in the workplace. While the common approach is to focus on buyer concerns and motivations, it's time to move the spotlight to someone who is just as important ­ the user, and why he/she is relevant to the selling motion of cybersecurity products.A top-down approach of selling directly to executives works well for established brands such as Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft, but in recent years we have seen the success of bottoms-up adoption with products such as Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, and, Asana. These solutions appeal directly to users, who choose to use these technologies instead or on top of what's offered by IT. The result is a new reality which management cannot ignore and in fact, about 50 percent of corporate technology spend comes from budget outside IT. This phenomenon known as "Shadow IT" used to create clashes inside the org but is now considerably better integrated into workplace dynamics. Instead of enforcing technologies and paying for adoption, integration, and maintenance, execs now build on top of adoption that is created organically within the org. Put in different words, happy user; happy company.This bottom-up approach has also produced successful companies in the IT infrastructure and Development categories such as GGV portfolio company HashiCorp, as well as MongoDB, Elastic, Confluent, and Kong, to name a few. These companies help customers modernize and enhance their IT infrastructure dramatically through products that are first adopted by DevOps and developers, but are eventually purchased by a different stakeholder within the organization. This adoption model has been proven successful with extremely efficient sales fueled by viral and inbound marketing. So, can bottoms-up selling work for security solutions as well? I believe so thanks to related undercurrents: First, the CISO's role has evolved in recent years. Previously, the CISO's primary goal was to reduce risk, and as a result the introduction of new technologies was slow. Today the CISO's #1 priority is productivity, allowing the organization to be agile and move fast, in a secure way. Therefore, the modern-day CISO is much more receptive to what users think, and will often prioritize solutions that have been advocated from within. Second, security solutions today are often used by constituents outside The Next Cybersecurity Trend to Watch: Shadow Security - Selling to the User, not the Buyer By Oren Yunger,VC, GGVSTARTUP INSIDER
< Page 9 | Page 11 >